Stocks ended mixed on Wednesday as investors digested minutes from the Federal Reserve's meeting earlier this month, looking for clues on the central bank's next moves to combat inflation. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell over 80 points, while the S&P 500 Index declined about 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.13%.
Here's how the market settled on Wednesday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
Summary from the Fed's Jan. 31-Feb. 1 policy meeting showed that official were intent on issuing "ongoing increases" to interest rates in response to sticky inflation but are open to reaching a rate hiking peak later this year.
"Participants concurred that the Federal Open Market Committee had made significant progress over the past year in moving toward a sufficiently restrictive stance of monetary policy," the minutes said.
"Even so, participants agreed that, while there were signs that the cumulative effect of the Committee's tightening of the stance of monetary policy had begun to moderate inflationary pressures, inflation remained well above the Committee's longer-run goal of 2% and the labor market remained very tight."
Policymakers also noted that "inflation data received over the past three months showed a welcome reduction in the monthly pace of price increases but stressed that substantially more evidence of progress across a broader range of prices would be required to be confident that inflation was on a sustained downward path," the minutes said.
Raising concerns that the central bank will hold interest rates higher for longer-than-expected took hold on Tuesday, with Wall Street posting its worst day of the year so far. The Dow dropped over 700 points, while the S&P 500 fell below 4,000 and the Nasdaq lost 2.5% by closing bell.
Elsewhere for stocks, Coinbase
Palo Alto Networks
Stellantis
Intel
"The decision to decrease the quarterly dividend reflects the board's deliberate approach to capital allocation and is designed to best position the company to create long-term value. The improved financial flexibility will support the critical investments needed to execute Intel's transformation during this period of macroeconomic uncertainty," Intel said in a press release.
Looking ahead, investors will react to after market earnings reports from companies like Nvidia