US stocks mildly lower in pre-FOMC subdued trading action

Major US equity indices witnessed a subdued opening on Wednesday as investors remained on the sideline ahead of the latest FOMC monetary policy update.

The US central bank is widely expected to raise interest rates by 25 bps points but the key focus would be on its forecasts over the pace of future increases. The big question is the number of additional rate hikes for the rest of 2018, which would eventually influence investors' appetite for riskier assets - like equities.

Any indications of a more aggressive monetary policy tightening cycle, signalling three more rate hikes this year could push the US Treasury bond yields higher and turn out to be the catalyst triggering a repeat performance of last month's heavy sell-off.

Aside from this, the recent weakness in technology stocks, led by a sharp drop in the shares of Facebook, continued denting investors’ confidence and collaborated to the weaker trading action during the opening hour of trade. 

At the time of writing this report, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down around 30-points to 24,700 and the broader S&P 500 Index slipped nearly 3-points to 2,715. Meanwhile, tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index lost over 5-points and was last seen hovering around 7,355 level.