Stocks turn lower as investors await Fed decision, jobs report

By Liz Moyer 

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are falling on Monday as investors await the Federal Reserve's latest policy announcement and the jobs report for January.

At 10:44 ET (15:44 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 62 points or 0.2%, while the S&P 500 was down 0.8%, and the NASDAQ Composite was down 1.7%.

Tech stocks pulled the major indexes lower ahead of the Fed's announcement. The central bank is expected to raise interest rates another quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, and investors are hoping to get a hint of where the Fed is headed this year. 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell will hold his regular press conference after the policy decision on Wednesday afternoon.

The still-tight labor market is something the Fed is taking into consideration in setting its monetary policy. Friday's job report for January is expected to show the economy added 185,000 jobs in the month, down from 223,000 in December.

The Fed isn't the only central bank making an announcement. The European Central Bank and the Bank of England are also expected to hike rates this week.

Major tech companies will also influence the markets when they report their most recent quarterly results, including Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) on Wednesday, and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Alphabet Inc. Class C (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) on Thursday.

Shares of Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) fell 5%. Ford Motor (NYSE:F), a growing rival in the electric vehicle business, has announced plans to cut prices for its EV Mustang Mach E. Shares of Ford were down 2.3%.

JD.com, Inc. ADR (NASDAQ:JD) shares fell 5.8% on reports the Chinese e-commerce company is ending online services in Thailand and Indonesia.

Oil was falling. Crude Oil WTI Futures was down 1% to $78.82 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures was down 1% to $85.53 a barrel. Gold Futures was down 0.2% to $1925.