While you were sleeping: Dow stretches to another record high

Wall Street advanced, with the Dow and other benchmarks reaching new closing highs, as the Federal Open Market Committee began its two-day meeting after which it is widely expected to announce a plan for the reduction of its balance sheet.

"People are in wait-and-see mode," Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial in Waltham, Massachusetts, told Reuters. "The expectations are that rates will remain unchanged and they [the Fed] will start balance sheet unwinding. But there's always a possibility of surprise. I think that's why investors are cautious."

At the close of trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 39.45 points, or 0.2%, to 22,370.80, its eighth consecutive session of gains. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.1% to 6461.32 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index also moved up 0.1% to 2506.65.

"We are not overly concerned about" the Fed's quantitative-tightening plans," Merrill Lynch and US Trust head of fixed-income strategy Matthew Diczok told Bloomberg.

"If you model it out, over about the next three years they'll take out about $US1.3 trillion or so," he notes. "That's only a third of what they put into the market. So it's going to be very slow, very gradual, very deliberate and it shouldn't lead to any near-term fireworks into the market at all."

Earlier in the day, the Dow rose a fresh intraday high of 22,386.01.

The Dow climbed as gains in shares of Verizon and those of JPMorgan Chase, up 2.0% and 1.5% respectively, outweighed slides by UnitedHealth and General Electric, down 2.3% and 1.6% respectively.

Kohl's offers free Amazon returns
Kohl's climbed 2.2% after the department store operator said it would offer free returns for Amazon customers starting in October. Kohl's will pack and ship eligible Amazon return items for free in 82 stores in Los Angeles and Chicago.

"We think this is a unique way to draw foot traffic into stores and to expand reach to new customers, while giving Amazon low-risk access to a brick-and-mortar presence," Morningstar analyst Bridget Weishaar wrote in a note, Reuters reported.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note rose to 2.239% from 2.230% on Monday.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the day little changed from the previous close. Germany's DAX Index eked out a 0.02% gain, France's CAC 40 Index added 0.2% and the UK's FTSE 100 Index rose 0.3%.

Heineken shares dropped 3.8% in Amsterdam after Fomento Economico Mexicano, a Mexican bottler and retailer, said it sold a 5.24% stake in the world's No 2 brewer for about €2.5 billion ($US3 billion).

Shares of Ocado slid 2% after the UK online grocer warned short-term costs might rise because of its investment in a new distribution centre.

(BusinessDesk)