Stocks Lower Ahead of Fed

U.S. Market
Stocks opened lower ahead of the highly-anticipated Fed statement this afternoon.

At midday the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were down 0.6%, 0.4% and 0.2% respectively.

Stocks on the Move
Shares of FedEx (FDX) were down 2.8% after the firm reported earnings and a disappointing outlook. The firm earned $2.01 per share in its fiscal third-quarter, well above the $1.23 per share it earned in the year-ago quarter and the $1.88 per share expected by economists. However, management provided narrower earnings guidance that was short of expectations.

Oracle's (ORCL) fiscal third-quarter results, announced late Tuesday, reflected the unfavorable impact of currency headwinds, but were solid on a constant-currency basis. The software titan also announced a 25% increase to its quarterly dividend, to $0.15. Overall revenue growth was grew 6% on a constant-currency basis (0% including currency effects), paced by software revenue growth of 7% (1% including currency headwinds). Shares were up over 2% at midday.

Adobe's (ADBE) first-quarter results came in slightly ahead of management's guidance, but within our range of expectations. Revenue was largely as expected: 11% year-over-year growth to $1.109 billion. All three business segments posted double-digit revenue growth as demand for digital content creation, analytics, and publishing remained strong. Profitability was better than expected, with both GAAP and non-GAAP operating margin coming in ahead of last year. Shares fell nearly 3.5% on a worse-than-expected outlook.

Foreign Markets
European markets were mixed today ahead of the Fed. The FTSE 100 was up 1.4%, the Paris CAC was flat while Germany’s DAX was off 0.4%.

Asian shares were higher on the day. The Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng and Nikkei 225 were up 2.1%, 0.9% and 0.6% respectively.