By Liz Moyer
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks were falling as investors considered the chances of more interest rate increases in the coming months.
At 9:56 ET (14:56 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 43 points or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 was down 0.4% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 0.7%.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that it will take a while to bring inflation in check though he acknowledged disinflationary forces were at work after successive rate hikes last year. Last week the Fed raised rates by another quarter of a percentage point.
Futures traders are forecasting another quarter-point hike in March and another in May, pushing the benchmark rate above 5%. Fed officials have also forecast the terminal rate to reach above 5%.
Several Fed officials are expected to speak this week, including New York Fed President John Williams, who appeared at a conference today. He said financial conditions look to be in line with what policymakers want to see.
Investors were also focused on corporate earnings. Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) will report later today. Shares of Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE:UBER) were up 3% after the ride-hailing app beat expectations for fourth-quarter earnings and sales.
Shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) rose 2.4% after it revealed a generative artificial intelligence capability to its Bing search engine. Generative AI has become a hot topic since OpenAI’s ChatGPT sprang onto the scene.
Activision Blizzard Inc (NASDAQ:ATVI) shares fell 2% after U.K. antitrust regulators said its planned merger with Microsoft could harm competition.
Oil rose. Crude Oil WTI Futures were up 0.9% to $77.81 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude rose 0.6% to $84.17 a barrel. Gold Futures fell 0.1% to $1,883.