US stocks drift ahead of the Fed's announcement on interest rates

The widespread expectation is that Fed will leave its main interest rate alone

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The US stock market was drifting last evening as Wall Street waited to hear from the Federal Reserve about where it sees interest rates going.

The S&P 500 added 0.2 per cent, coming off a mixed day where falling tech stocks weighed on the index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 240 points, or 0.5 per cent, as of 10:15am Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2 per cent higher.

Several stocks involved in the artificial-intelligence business headed back up their roller-coaster ride, supporting the market. Jabil rose 5.2 per cent after reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected, as CEO Mike Dastoor said that “AI infrastructure demand remains extremely strong.”

Broadcom climbed 4.4 per cent, and Applied Materials rose 8.6 per cent.

Such AI stocks have veered up and down in recent weeks and yanked the rest of the market behind them on worries that their prices shot too high because of the mania around AI.

SpaceX down