Investors move to cautious mode ahead of FOMC

Wall Street top three indexes ended mixed on Monday as market participants looked ahead of a widely anticipated interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 21.50 points by the end of the session while IBM stocks were on top of decliners. The S&P 500 rose by 0.84 points, marking a third consecutive winning day. As for the Nasdaq, NVIDIA and Facebook contributed the most to its intraday gain.

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.10 percent / 20881.48 points
• Standard & Poor’s 500: +0.04 percent / 2373.47 points
• Nasdaq Composite: +0.24 percent / 5875.78 points

Health care sector came under strong pressure after the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 14 million people would be left uninsured next year if GOP’s American Health Care Act is finally given green light by the Congress.
The idea behind this reform is to repeal the Affordable Care Act, mostly known as Obamacare and which has provided insurance to over 20 million people. The projection also shows that nearly 70 percent of that group will possibly lose their current insurance under a new legislation.
"In 2026, an estimated 52 million people would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law," said the CBO's document.
Today, the Federal Open Market Committee is kicking off its two-day monetary policy meeting. By this time, chances for a rate hike stand close to 100 percent, supported by recent upbeat labor data and hawkish remarks from FOMC officials.
The US central bank is due to raise interest rates by 25 basis points to a range between 0.75 - 1.00 percent, marking its third hike in a decade and fueling speculation over a third and even fourth rate move later this year. Focus will rather be on Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s press conference following the FOMC statement.
Tuesday present itself as another light day for economic reports, with the production price index as the only relevant publication scheduled. February’s PPI is due at 12:30 GMT and analyst are seeing a 0.2 percent build for the core index.

Fort Financial Services