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U.S. stocks trade mixed around midday ahead of Fed statement

Xinhua, July 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks were mixed around midday Wednesday as Wall Street awaited the U.S. Federal Reserve's statement scheduled to be released in the afternoon.

By noon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.10 points, or 0.12 percent, to 18,451.65. The S&P 500 lost 6.30 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2,162.88. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 19.33 points, or 0.38 percent, to 5,129.37.

Analysts believed that the U.S. central bank will keep its interest rates unchanged after the conclusion of its two-day policy meeting.

In corporate news, after Tuesday's closing bell, Apple Inc. reported its financial results for the third quarter ended June 25 in the fiscal year 2016.

The tech giant posted quarterly revenue of 42.4 billion U.S. dollars and quarterly net income of 7.8 billion dollars, or 1.42 dollars per diluted share. Its shares soared over 6 percent around midday Wednesday.

Shares of Boeing jumped about 2 percent around midday Wednesday after the aerospace firm reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss.

On the economic front, values of new orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods in June decreased 9.3 billion dollars or 4.0 percent to 219.8 billion dollars, which is worse than expected, the Commerce Department announced Wednesday.

"While certainly not a strong report, the extreme headline weakness was driven primarily by a huge drop in nondefense aircraft and defense orders, two highly volatile indicators not very representative of the underlying economy," said Jay Morelock, an economist at FTN Financial.

On Tuesday, U.S. stocks closed mixed, as investors digested a batch of quarterly earnings reports while expecting the result of the Fed's policy meeting. Endit