U.S. Stocks Close Mixed Ahead Of Fed Policy Meeting; Dow Hits New Record High

U.S. stocks ended on a mixed note on Monday as investors looked ahead to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy announcement later this week, and stayed largely cautious and selective with regard to their moves.

Among the major averages, the Dow hit a new record high and ended up 228.30 points or 0.55 percent at 41,622.08, and the Nasdaq closed lower by 91.85 points or 0.52 percent at 17,592.13, while the S&P 500 settled at 5,633.09 with a small gain of 7.07 points or 0.13 percent.

The Fed is widely expected to lower interest rates, but there remains some debate about the size of the rate cut.

CME Group’s FedWatch Tool is currently indicating a 65.0 percent chance of a half point rate cut and a 35.0 percent chance of a quarter point rate cut.

Whether the Fed decides to cut rates by 25 or 50 basis points, the central bank is still expected to continue lowering rates over the remainder of the year.

Oracle Corporation climbed more than 5 percent. Meta Platforms, Accenture, Cisco Systems and IBM also closed notably higher.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley posted strong gains. Visa Inc. and Mastercard also ended on a firm note.

Exxon Mobil Corporation and Chevron Corporation recorded impressive gains.

Procter & Gamble, Merck, Abbot Laboratories and Pfizer moved up sharply. T.Mobile, Linde, GE Aerospace, Verizon Communications, Blackstone, AT&T, Nike and Walt Disney also moved notably higher.

Tesla, Broadcom, Adobe Inc., Amazon, Nvidia Corporation, Apple Inc. and Intuit Inc. ended with sharp to moderate losses.

On the economic front, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a report today showing regional manufacturing grew for the first time in nearly a year in the month of September.

The New York Fed said its general business conditions index surged to a positive 11.5 in September from a negative 4.7 in August, with a positive reading indicating growth. Economists had expected the index to inch up to a negative 3.9.

With the sharp increase, the index returned to positive territory for the first time since hitting a positive 9.1 last November.

The much bigger than expected increase by the headline index partly reflected a significant turnaround by new orders, as the new orders index spiked to a positive 9.4 in September from a negative 7.9 in August.

In overseas trading, Asian stocks ended mixed on Monday in thin holiday trading, as a slew of Chinese data disappointed and caution prevailed ahead of the Fed, BoJ and BoE policy meetings this week, with central banks in Japan and the U.K. both expected to stand pat on rates.

The major European markets closed weak after a cautious session as investors awaited the monetary policy announcements from the Bank of England, the Fed, and the Bank of Japan.

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