Stocks move lower as investors wait for Federal Reserve

Stocks fell in morning trading Wednesday as investors remain on the sidelines until they get more guidance from the Federal Reserve as well as the direction of the coronavirus pandemic.

The S&P 500 index was down 0.3% as of 11:22 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell, 62 points or 0.2%, to 35,037 and the Nasdaq composite was down 0.8%. Most of the market was moving lower, with exception of lower-risk sectors like makers of consumer staples and utilities.

Technology stocks were the biggest drag on the broader market. Apple fell 1.3% and chipmaker Nvidia fell 2.5%.

Shares of cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase fell 4.1% after the company disclosed it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission over its plans to offer its cryptocurrency holders a chance to earn interest on their assets if they lent them out.

The market continues to remain in a narrow range of gains and losses for the past couple of weeks, as investors look for any sort of understanding of where the U.S. economy is headed with the widespread delta variant of the coronavirus.

U.S. employers posted record job openings for the second consecutive month in July, according to the Labor Department. The disconnect between the growing number of job openings and the weak recovery for employment levels is another signal that the overall jobs recovery could be crimping the broader economic recovery.

Investors will get some additional new information from the Federal Reserve later Wednesday when the central bank releases its “Beige Book” survey of regional economic conditions. The collection of anecdotal economic data and observances is used by policymakers to help them decide how to move interest rates and, more importantly, decide whether to end the bank’s bond-buying program that’s existed since the pandemic started.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.36% after rising sharply on Tuesday to 1.37%.