By David French
(Reuters) -U.S. stock indexes extended losses for a second straight day on Wednesday as investors locked in profits after a strong 2023, with the release of minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting failing to shake off the funk hanging over markets.
Fed policymakers appeared increasingly convinced at their December meeting that inflation was coming under control, with “upside risks” diminished and growing concern about the damage that “overly restrictive” monetary policy might do to the economy, minutes of that rate-setting meeting showed.
The minutes shed little light on when rate cuts might commence.
At 2:07 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 210.67 points, or 0.56%, at 37,504.37, the S&P 500 was down 29.67 points, or 0.63%, at 4,713.16, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 148.6 points, or 1.01%, at 14,617.34.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Shristi Achar A in Bengaluru and David French in New York; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Richard Chang)
