The US stock market opened lower on Tuesday with all the three main indices seeing declines, ahead of the US Federal Reserve meeting.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost over 100 points or 0.65% to 20,043, while the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 275 points or 0.6% to 43,442, the lowest in nearly a month.
The broader index, S&P 500, fell 0.5% to 6,042. Eight out of the eleven sectoral indices were trading in the red, led by declines in energy, information technology and financials. Telecom and communication services, healthcare and materials were the only sectors seeing gains.
Shares of chipmakers Broadcom Inc., Vistra Energy Corp. and Nvidia Corp. edged lower in early trade. On other hand, Pfizer Inc., Super Micro Computers Inc., Tesla Inc. and Google-parent Alphabet Inc. were among companies rising.
The Wall Street is expected to keep a tab on the two-day Fed meeting scheduled to start on Tuesday. The monetary policy body will is expected to cut rates by a quarter-point following the conclusion of the meeting on Wednesday.
Attention is also on the central bank's revised economic projections and the dot plot, which could reshape expectations for the interest rate trajectory through 2025 and 2026.
Investors also reacted to US retail sales that rose by 0.7% in November, above the 0.6% forecast, underscoring that the American economy is still growing at a healthy pace even with higher interest rates.
Among other asset classes, the yield on the US 10-year Treasury bond was flat at 4.39%.
The Dollar Index gained marginally by 0.02% to 106.88. The Euro and Japanese Yen weakened, while the British Pound traded higher.
In the commodities market, spot gold was down 0.6% at $2,637 per ounce. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, declined over 1% to below $73 per barrel.
Bitcoin, the world's largest-traded cryptocurrency, reached another high of $1,08,315, thereby extending rally to its third day.
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