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Wall St closed lower on Tuesday as investors look forward to the results of this week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting. All three major benchmarks closed lower on Tuesday with the Dow Jones losing 0.31%, the S&P 500 falling 0.22% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq sliding 0.23%.

In terms of US shares, Disney lost more than 3% following it decision to announce plans to almost double investment on its cruise and parks business. Agricultural manufacturer, Deere also lost nearly 3% after investment bank Evercore ISI downgraded the stock due to agriculture production concerns.

The US Central bank’s meeting started overnight with there being an expectation amongst investors that the Federal Reserve will not raise rates when its decision comes out on Wednesday in the US.

Over in Europe, markets closed marginally lower as European investors await the results of the Federal Reserve meeting over in the US. The STOXX 600 closed slightly lower with retail stocks posting the biggest losses, whilst banks and oil slightly offset this with gains of around 1%. The FTSE 100 and French CAC finished the day marginally higher while the German Dax saw a close in the red of 0.40%.

Locally yesterday, the ASX 200 ended Tuesday 0.47% lower with materials and real estate sector finishing the day in the red. This was slightly offset by the energy sector ending the day 0.21% higher.

What to watch today:

• The Australian share market is set to open lower, with the SPI futures suggesting a fall of 0.22% at the open this morning.
• In terms of commodities this morning,
  • Oil is down 0.38% to 91 US dollars and 13 cents a barrel following Saudi Arabia and Russia announcing oil supply cuts.
  • Gold is down 0.13% to 1930 US dollars and 61 cents an ounce as the Federal Reserve is expected to maintain a hold on interest rates.
  • And iron ore is 0.40% lower to 125 US dollars a tonne amid expectations of stronger demand coming from China.

Trading Ideas:

• Bell Potter maintains a speculative buy rating on Azure Minerals (ASX:AZS) and maintains it’s valuation of $4.90 with its current share price trading at $2.49. Bell Potter believes that they are well funded to pursue its lithium exploration target with them also starting exploration of areas where some of the highest ranked lithium targets are located.
• And Bell Potter maintains a hold rating on Altium (ASX:ALU) and have increased their price target from $40 to $44, with a current share price of $45.20. Bell Potter believes the stock is trading around fair value for FY24, hence maintaining its hold rating.