U.S. Stocks Give Back Ground After Early Move To The Upside

(RTTNews) - After climbing to new record intraday highs early in the session, stocks have given back some ground over the course of the trading day on Tuesday. The major averages have pulled back well off their highs of the session, with the S&P 500 briefly dipping into negative territory.

Currently, the major averages are posting modest gains. The Dow is up 255.49 points or 0.5 percent at 47,800.08, the Nasdaq is up 68.16 points or 0.3 percent at 23,705.62 and the S&P 500 is up 5.40 points or 0.1 percent at 6,880.56.

The early strength on Wall Street came as stocks continued to benefit from recent upward momentum, which propelled the major averages to new record closing highs on Monday amid optimism about a potential trade deal between the U.S. and China.

News of a rare metals deal between the U.S. and Japan may have increased confidence ahead of President Donald Trump's meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later this week.

Buying interest waned shortly after the start of trading, however, as traders look ahead to the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement on Wednesday.

While the Fed is widely expected to lower interest rates by another quarter point, traders will be looking to the accompanying statement as well as Fed Chair Jerome Powell's post-meeting comments for clues about the likelihood of further rate cuts.

CME Group's FedWatch Tool is currently indicating an 87.9 percent chance the Fed will lower rates by another quarter point in December, but the views about the chances of further rate cuts in early 2026 are more mixed.

Traders are also looking ahead to the release of earnings news from a number of big-name tech companies, with Alphabet (GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSGFT) and Amazon (AMZN) due to report their quarterly results in the coming days.

The positive sentiment may also have been partly offset by a report from the Conference Board showing a modest deterioration by U.S. consumer confidence in the month of October.

The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index dipped to 94.6 in October from an upwardly revised 95.6 in September.

Economists had expected the consumer confidence index to slip to 93.4 from the 94.2 originally reported for the previous month.

Sector News

Steel stocks have shown a substantial move to the upside on the day, driving the NYSE Arca Steel Index up by 1.8 percent to its best intraday level in over fifteen years.

Significant strength is also visible among software stocks, as reflected by the 1.3 percent gain being posted by the Dow Jones U.S. Software Index.

On the other hand, computer hardware stocks have come under pressure over the course of the session, dragging the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index down by 2.0 percent.

Airline, utilities and commercial real estate stocks are also seeing notable weakness, limiting the upside for the broader markets.

Other Markets

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly lower during trading on Tuesday. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index slid by 0.6 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite Index dipped by 0.2 percent.

Meanwhile, the major European markets are turning in a mixed performance on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index is down by 0.2 percent, the German DAX Index is just above the unchanged line and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index is up by 0.7 percent.

In the bond market, treasuries are seeing modest strength after ending the previous session roughly flat. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, is down by 1.4 basis points at 3.983 percent.