Stocks Turning In Mixed Performance In Cautious Trade

U.S. stocks are turning in a mixed performance Monday afternoon with investors largely making cautious moves ahead of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy announcement on Wednesday.

The Fed is almost universally 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.

Among the major averages, the Dow is gaining good ground in positive territory, while the Nasdaq is moderately lower, and the S&P 500 is flat.

At 41.578.82, the Dow was 185.04 or 0.45 percent, a little while ago. The Nasdaq was down 119.89 points or 0.68 percent at 17,564.09, while the S&P 500 was up slightly at 5,626.23.

Apple Inc., Nvidia Corp, Starbucks Corporation, Broadcom Inc., and Tesla are among the prominent losers.

Charles Schwab, Nike, Goldman Sachs, Union Pacific Corporation, AT&T, Morgan Stanley, Walt Disney Corporation, Pfizer, Wells Fargo, Blackstone, GE Aerospace, IBM, Cisco Systems, Linde Plc, T. Mobile, Merck and Bank of America are up 1 to 3 percent.

In economic news, 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.