Dow, S&P Fall Ahead Of Fed Meeting

Investors eyed this week's Federal Reserve meeting. While no major policy announcements are expected when the US central bank wraps up its two-day meeting on Wednesday, investors will scrutinise its remarks on the health of the economy, which has been reopening after coronavirus-related closures.

The Nasdaq's gains came a day after the index became the first of Wall Street's main indexes to confirm a new bull market after hitting a low on March 23.

The benchmark S&P 500 fell back into negative territory for the year after erasing those losses on Monday.

"It strikes me as maybe a reflexive selloff as a result of a tremendous rally over the past week. There's no news headline that screams bearish catalyst to me. But conversely, other than the non-farm payrolls data, the past two weeks haven't had super bullish catalysts either," said Mike Zigmont, head of trading and research at Harvest Volatility Management in New York.

"In the grand scheme of things, it seems like the market has caught a bullish fever, and it's feeding on itself."

Financial, industrial and energy stocks, which have surged in recent weeks on hopes of an improved economic outlook, were the biggest drags on the benchmark S&P 500 on Tuesday.

The Dow Jones fell 1.09 per cent, to 27,272; the S&P 500 lost 0.78 per cent, to 3,207 and the Nasdaq added 0.29 per cent, to 9,954

US financial market operators, including the New York Stock Exchange, held a moment of silence in honor of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American who died on May 25 after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. (Reuters)