Stocks fell in morning trading on Wall Street Wednesday as traders wait to hear from the Federal Reserve after its last policy meeting of the year.

The S&P 500 index fell 0.3% as of 10:14 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 96 points, or 0.3%, to 35,447 and the Nasdaq fell 0.6%.

Big communications companies were among the biggest weights on the market. Facebook parent Meta fell 2.1% and Google parent Alphabet shed 1.2%. U.S. crude oil prices fell 1.3% and sent energy stocks lower. Hess fell 3.8%. Banks and a wide range of retailers also fell.

Stocks climbed in Asia on Thursday, tracking Wall Street’s gains, after the Federal Reserve said it would accelerate its pullback of economic stimulus.

The Fed said it would likely raise interest rates three times next year to tackle rising inflation and will shrink its monthly bond purchases at twice the pace it previously announced, in line with ending them altogether in March.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index rose 1.8% to 28,979.60 and the Kospi in South Korea picked up 0.2% to 2,996.04. The Shanghai Composite index added 0.3% to 3,657.85. India and Taiwan rose, while Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4% to 7,296.10.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng dropped 0.8% to 23,235.98. Simmering tensions between Beijing and Washington are casting a shadow, analysts say, after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution to ban imports from China’s Xinjiang region due to concerns about forced labor and other abuses.

Two-thirds of companies in the S&P 500 fell. Gains by big technology companies and retailers offset losses in other sectors as investors sized up the latest corporate earnings.

Also Thursday, the Labor Department said that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell for a seventh week to a pandemic low of 268,000.

U.S. stocks have risen in early October as companies report stronger profits than expected.

Companies in the S&P 500 have reported overall earnings growth of 39%. That outpaces earlier forecasts in June for 23% growth for the quarter.

Companies face higher costs for raw materials and supply chain problems. Consumers have so far absorbed price hikes, but analysts fear they could eventually rein in spending if increases continue.

In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude rose 65 cents to $79.06 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, used as the price basis for international oils, gained 72 cents to $81.96 per barrel in London. 

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