Roundup: U.S. stocks post weekly losses amid political uncertainties, Fed decision

U.S. stocks decreased for the week amid rising concerns for the upcoming U.S. presidential election and Federal Reserve's decision to keep interest rates unchanged.

For the week, all three major indices suffered big losses, with the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq going down 1.5 percent, 1.9 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively.

Uncertainties about market reactions to the outcome of the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8 weighed on the market this week.

The race between Republican Donald Trump and his Democratic counterpart, Hillary Clinton, has become tighter since last week, when the FBI said it was investigating new emails related to Clinton.

FBI Director James Comey said last week in a letter to lawmakers that the agency is probing new emails related to the Democratic nominee. The emails were discovered during a separate investigation involving former Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Clinton's lead over her Republican counterpart, Donald Trump, has narrowed significantly since the news broke out, according to data from RealClearPolitics.

"The election in a few days will not affect the Fed's near-term policy decisions. It will have some effect longer-run, however, not least because two vacancies on the Fed board will be filled by the next President," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial.

Meanwhile, the Fed's two-day monetary policy meeting was also on focus.

The U.S. central bank left interest rates unchanged after the conclusion of the meeting Wednesday.

"The Committee judges that the case for an increase in the federal funds rate has continued to strengthen but decided, for the time being, to wait for some further evidence of continued progress toward its objectives," the Fed's policy-making committee said in a statement.

The Fed, however, signaled that the central bank could raise rates again as soon as December because officials saw a pick-up in the U.S. economy and inflation.

"Whether it makes sense to raise rates with a weaker economic assessment and too low inflation is almost moot. The Fed clearly believes inflation will rise and "the case for a tightening continued to strengthen. " The December rate hike option remains on the table, though the FOMC refused to take the bait and make it a slam dunk," said Low.

On the U.S. economic front, in the week ending Oct. 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 265,000, an increase of 7,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 258,000, according to the U.S. Labor Department Thursday.

The four-week moving average was 257,750, an increase of 4,750 from the previous week's unrevised average of 253,000.

The Non-Manufacturing Index, which measures activity in the U.S. service sector, registered 54.8 percent in October, 2.3 percentage points lower than the September reading and well below market consensus, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said in its monthly survey.

U.S. total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 161,000 in October, worse than market expectations of 175,000, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.9 percent, according to the Labor Department Friday. Enditem