Stocks Close Near All-Time Highs Ahead of Fed Meeting

US stock indexes remained stuck in place on Tuesday as Wall Street made few big moves ahead of what's expected to be the first cut to interest rates in more than four years.

• The S&P 500 edged up by 1.49, or less than 0.1%, to 5,634.58. It remains 0.6% below its all-time closing high set in July, and it briefly rose above that mark during the morning.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 15.90 points, or less than 0.1%, to 41,606.18 from its own record set the day before.
• The Nasdaq composite edged up by 35.93, or 0.2%, to 17,628.06.

Intel helped drive the market with a gain of 2.7% following a series of announcements , including an expansion of its partnership with Amazon Web Services to produce custom chips. Intel also detailed plans to build its foundry business, the AP reports. That helped offset a 2.2% drop for Philip Morris International, which said it expects to record a loss of $220 million against its third-quarter results because of the sale of its Vectura Group inhaled-therapeutics subsidiary.

Excitement has built about an announcement scheduled for Wednesday afternoon from the Federal Reserve. The unanimous expectation on Wall Street is that the Fed will deliver the first cut to its main interest rate in more than four years. The general expectation on Wall Street is for the Fed to deliver a larger-than-usual cut of half of a percentage point on Wednesday, according to data from CME Group. But it's not a certainty. Traders are still betting on a 39% probability for a traditional-sized move of a quarter of a percentage point.

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Economic reports released Tuesday did little to change those expectations. One said US. shoppers spent more at retailers last month than expected. That's an encouraging signal that the heart of the US economy remains solid, but details underneath the surface were perhaps more discouraging. After ignoring automobiles and fuel, sales at US retailers last month were a touch weaker than economists expected. A separate report said US industrial production returned to growth in August and was stronger than economists expected. (More stock market stories.)