Wall Street was a bit lower at midday on Tuesday as investors waited to see whether or not the US Federal Reserve would leave interest rates at 5.25 percent as expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.1 percent lower to 12,315.9, while the Nasdaq Composite had dropped 0.2 percent to 2,437.31 and the S&P 500 remained steady at 1,412.90 in the middle of the trading day.
The Nasdaq Stock Market added 0.5 percent to $36.47 after it made its hostile takeover bid for the London Stock Exchange official by offering $5.3 billion for the exchange. Nasdaq already owns 28.75 percent of the LSE.
Texas Instruments added 0.4 percent to $29.42 after seeing declines overnight after it cut its earnings and sales projections for the fourth quarter. The gains came after JP Morgan upgraded its recommendation on the chipmaker from “neutral” to “overweight”.
In the steel sector, Nucor dropped 8.1 percent to $59.12 after it used low prices and high inventories as its excuse for issuing a fourth-quarter prediction that was below analyst estimates. The decline affected the sector, with US Steel falling 5.2 percent to $73.20.
Best Buy was 5.1 percent lower to $51.19 after it said that its net income was 31 cents per share, lower than the 35 cents per share expected by analysts.