U.S. stocks tick up ahead of Fed decision

U.S. stocks pared part of early gains to trade mildly higher around midday Wednesday, as investors digested a batch of economic reports ahead of the Federal Reserve's highly-watched decision on monetary policy.

By noon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 36.57 points, or 0.21 percent, to 17,561.48. The S&P 500 increased 7.46 points, or 0.37 percent, to 2,050.87. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 15.29 points, or 0.31 percent, to 5,010.65.

The U.S. central bank is widely expected to raise interest rates for the first time since June 2006 after the conclusion of the Fed's two-day meeting in the afternoon. However, analysts believed that the market has fully factored in the expected December rate hike.

"A rate hike is so widely expected, it's likely to be everything but the decision that determines the market reaction," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial, in a note.

On the economic front, U.S. privately-owned housing starts in November were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,173,000, beating market consensus, said the Commerce Department Tuesday.

This is 10.5 percent above the revised October estimate of 1,062,000 and is 16.5 percent above the November 2014 rate of 1,007,000.

U.S. industrial production declined 0.6 percent in November after decreasing 0.4 percent in October, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday. In November, manufacturing production was unchanged from October.

Meanwhile, the seasonally adjusted Markit Flash U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index came in at 51.3 in December, down from 52.8 in November. The reading pointed to the slowest improvement in manufacturing business conditions since October 2012.

On Tuesday, U.S. stocks extended gains as Wall Street cheered over a recovery in the oil prices. Endit