Wall Street made modest gains on Tuesday while the U.S. dollar rose slightly against a basket of major currencies, with only muted impact from the long-awaited U.S.-North Korea summit aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.
Investors were more focused on the start of a two-day policy meeting of the Federal Reserve, looking for hints as to whether the U.S. central bank would move to raise rates three or four times this year.
“I don’t think (the Fed) is going to say anything particularly related to a rate hike in December,” said Robert Pavlik, chief investment strategist and senior portfolio manager at SlateStone Wealth LLC in New York. “If they say a little too much about inflation, that’s going to give the market a reason to get concerned.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 1.58 points, or 0.01 percent, to 25,320.73, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 4.85 points, or 0.17 percent, to 2,786.85, and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 43.87 points, or 0.57 percent, to 7,703.79.
Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) rose 5.0 percent after J.P. Morgan raised its price target on the stock by $11 to $50, while Tesla (TSLA.O) shares gained 3.2 percent after the company said it is cutting several thousand jobs as part of efforts to become profitable.
After the closing bell, AT&T (T.N) won U.S. court approval to buy Time Warner Inc (TWX.N) for $85 billion. AT&T shares fell 2.6 percent and Time Warner shares rose 3.8 percent, in extended trading following the decision.
The dollar index .DXY rose 0.24 percent, steadied in part by data showing that U.S. consumer prices increased in May amid a slowdown in the rise of gasoline costs.
The euro EUR= was down 0.28 percent to $1.1749.