As expected, Wall Street opened on a cautious note on Tuesday after the release of contrasting corporate results and on the eve of Federal Reserve decisions.

Nearly an hour after opening, the Dow Jones index was down 0.5% at 38,204.9 points, while the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.1% at 15,961.8 points.204.9 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gave up 0.1% to 15,961.8 points.

After rising sharply over the past two sessions, US equity markets are more hesitant today, as the Fed is due to begin its two-day monetary policy meeting in a few hours' time.

While investors are largely anticipating a 'status quo', they will be closely watching the speech by US central bank chairman Jerome Powell for possible indications of future rate cuts.

Investors are also on their guard as they await Amazon's results, which will be released after the close and inevitably scrutinized after the flawless copies handed in by Microsoft and Alphabet last week.

The strength of consumer spending, growth in cloud demand for businesses and the favorable dynamics of the advertising market should support first-quarter performance", says Maria Ripps, analyst at Canaccord Genuity.

Several big names in the stock market published their quarterly accounts before the opening, often with mixed results.

Industrial conglomerate 3M gained more than 5% after reporting a 21% rise in earnings for the first three months of 2024 and presenting new targets for 2024.

Biopharmaceutical company Eli Lilly climbed 7% after raising its target ranges for 2024 following a 59% rise in first-quarter profit.

McDonald's, on the other hand, fell back 0.3% despite first-quarter sales and earnings exceeding Wall Street expectations.

Coca-Cola, for its part, traded at around breakeven (+0.2%) following the publication of a 36% contraction in operating income for the first three months of the year.

On the economic front, the Conference Board's consumer confidence index deteriorated for the third consecutive month in April, to 97 this month against a revised figure of 103.1 in March.

This is its lowest level since July 2022.

The sub-index measuring consumer expectations fell to 66.4 from 74 last month, a figure below the 80-point threshold often heralding a coming recession.

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