Wall St. mixed with Fed minutes, inflation data in focus

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Pranav Kashyap

(Reuters) - The main indexes were mixed in choppy trading on Wednesday as investors awaited the minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest meeting, while Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL ) shares dipped after the U.S. said it was considering breaking up Google.

Shares of Alphabet were down 0.2% in early trading after the U.S. Department of Justice said it may ask a judge to force Google to divest parts of its business, including the Chrome browser and Android operating system, to curtail its search monopoly.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 148.23 points, or 0.35%, to 42,228.60, the S&P 500 gained 0.51 points, or 0.01%, to 5,751.59 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 45.09 points, or 0.25%, to 18,137.82, lagging the other two main indexes.

"(This is) just a reflection of how super-sized Big Tech has become. Any uncertainty there will feature into the rest of the market," said Ben Laidler, head of equity strategy at Bradesco BBI.

Trading has been choppy this week, with investors adjusting their rate-cut expectations, seeking new catalysts for a clearer market direction. Their attention will now turn to crucial inflation data on Thursday and the upcoming third-quarter corporate earnings season.

Minutes from the Fed's September meeting, when policymakers kicked off monetary policy easing with a 50-basis-point rate cut, are due at 2:00 p.m. ET.

"We expect the FOMC minutes and tomorrow's CPI to be reassuring and calm these market nerves around the ability of the Fed to keep cutting interest rates," Laidler said.

Commentary from a number of Fed officials including Philip Jefferson and Thomas Barkin are also expected through the day.

Investors are overwhelmingly pricing in a 25-basis-point reduction in borrowing costs at the Fed's November meeting, with some now seeing a slight chance the central bank will keep rates on hold, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Prior to the release of strong employment data last week, markets were leaning towards an outsized 50-bps cut in November.

Among single stocks, Boeing (NYSE:BA ) lost 3.1% after talks between the company and its key manufacturing union broke down.

Shares of Arcadium Lithium soared 30.5% after Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO ) said it would acquire the miner for $6.7 billion.

Shares of Goldman Sachs rose 1.1%, helping the Dow outperform other indexes, while Financials stocks were the biggest S&P 500 sector gainers.

U.S.-listed shares of Chinese firms dropped as investors continued to question if China would announce new stimulus measures.

Alibaba (NYSE:BABA ) Group fell 2.3%, PDD Holdings lost 2.7% and JD (NASDAQ:JD ).Com dropped 3.5%.

Additionally, investors were keeping a watch on the potential impact from Category 5 Hurricane Milton as well as the escalating conflict in the Middle East.



Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.04-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 1.3-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 20 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 29 new highs and 51 new lows.

Source: Investing.com