Wall Street was down slightly on Tuesday, taking a break from the historic peaks of recent trading sessions ahead of several important dates, in particular Microsoft's results and the Federal Reserve meeting.

At the end of the morning, the Dow Jones fell by 0.1% to 38,288.5 points, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.5% to 15,549.7 points.

US equity markets suffered from some profit-taking in a context of caution on the eve of the Fed's monetary policy announcements.

The US central bank is expected to keep rates unchanged tomorrow, while insisting on the good health of the US economy and qualifying the recent disinflationary trend, thus closing the door on a first rate cut as early as March.

The day's statistics are moreover favorable, with consumer confidence improving for a third consecutive month in January, returning to its highest level since the end of 2021.

The confidence index calculated by the Conference Board jumped to 114.8 this month, after falling to a revised 108 in December, thanks to slowing inflation, the prospect of lower interest rates and a still generally favorable job market.

On the results front, the disappointing publication of UPS (-8%) - often considered a good barometer of the US economy - was offset by the good figures unveiled by GM (+6.8%).

Microsoft (+0.1%), Alphabet (-0.5%) and AMD (-0.9%) are moving without much direction as they await the publication, this evening after the close, of their quarterly results.

The upturn in the bond market fizzled out, with the yield on ten-year Treasuries climbing back to 4.10%, and no longer able to offer real support to the equity markets as it did on Monday.

U.S. light crude is up 1%, at around $77.6 a barrel, while the IMF has revised upwards its projections for the global economy for 2024 and 2025.

The dollar is losing a little ground against the euro, which is up at around 1.0840, on the eve of the Fed's announcements.

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