By Amruta Khandekar and Shashwat Chauhan
Wall Street's main stock indexes rose on Wednesday as investors looked forward to the Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision, while megacap stocks gained as bond yields eased after the U.S. Treasury Department's refunding plans.
The Fed is widely expected to keep interest rates unchanged, but investors will focus on Chair Jerome Powell's conference at 1430 ET (1830 GMT) after the statement to gauge how long the central bank could keep rates elevated.
Bets of a 25-basis point rate hike in December currently stand at 26.2%, as per CME Group's FedWatch tool.
"For now, the Fed is very much in wait and see mode," said Niall O' Sullivan, chief investment officer multi-asset strategies EMEA at Neuberger Berman.
"Data continues to show consumer strength and broader economic strength in the U.S. and against that, is the long end of the curve, which is to some extent acting like rate hikes."
Meanwhile, the Treasury Department said it will slow the pace of increases in its longer-dated debt auctions in the November-January quarter and expects it will need one more additional quarter of increases after this to meet its financing needs.
"It wasn't as bad as feared. The guidance that there may be only one more quarter where it increases was somewhat comforting," said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year note slipped after the refunding news and was last at 4.812%.
Megacap growth stocks including Tesla, Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon.com gained between 0.8% and 1.8%.
Five of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were trading higher, with information technology and communication services leading gains.
The Fed's stance on interest rates will likely set the tone for U.S. equities following a sharp fall in October due to a surge in Treasury yields, the Middle East conflict and mixed earnings reports.
CVS Health beat estimates for quarterly profit, though medical costs at its health insurance business were high. The company's shares were last down 3.1%.
Estee Lauder dropped 20.3% after the beauty products maker cut its annual profit outlook.
Meanwhile, data showed U.S. private payrolls increased less than expected in October, while the September JOLTS job openings data came in at 9.55 million against expectations of 9.25 million.
The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) survey showed U.S. manufacturing rose to 46.7 in October against expectations of 49.
At 10:05 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 56.38 points, or 0.17%, at 33,109.25, the S&P 500 was up 15.55 points, or 0.37%, at 4,209.35, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 55.23 points, or 0.43%, at 12,906.46.
Payroll processor Paycom Software plunged 36.6% after projecting downbeat fourth-quarter revenue.
Tinder owner Match Group fell 16.1% after forecasting fourth-quarter revenue below estimates.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.21-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.43-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded six new 52-week highs and 17 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 13 new highs and 135 new lows.
(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Dhanya Ann Thoppil and Maju Samuel)
