NEW YORK (AP) — Technology stocks are slumping Wednesday as several of Wall Street’s most influential stocks feel the downside of ultrahigh expectations.

The S&P 500 was 1% lower and potentially heading for its worst day in six weeks. Its losses accelerated a bit in the afternoon after the Federal Reserve hinted that the cuts to interest rates investors desire so much may not arrive as soon as hoped.

The drops for Big Tech stocks sent the Nasdaq composite down a market-leading 1.5%, as of 2:20 p.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which has less of an emphasis on tech, was down 69 points, or 0.2%.

Alphabet was one of the heaviest weights on the market, and it fell 6.6% despite reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Underneath the surface, analysts pointed to some concerning trends in how much Google’s parent company is earning from advertising.

The bigger challenge, though, may have been the high expectations the company is contending with after its stock soared last year by much more than the rest of the market. Other Big Tech stocks that likewise accounted for a disproportionate chunk of the S&P 500’s rally to a record were also struggling Wednesday in the face of high expectations.

Microsoft was down 1.7% even though it delivered stronger profit and revenue than expected. One analyst, Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities, even called its quarterly report “a masterpiece that should be hung in the Louvre.”

Tesla, another member of the group of stocks nicknamed the “Magnificent Seven,” slipped 0.4%. A judge in Delaware ruled a day earlier that its CEO, Elon Musk, is not entitled to the landmark compensation package awarded him by Tesla that’s potentially worth more than $55 billion.

The Magnificent Seven were responsible for the majority of the S&P 500’s return last year, and three more members are scheduled to report their latest quarter results on Thursday: Amazon, Apple and Meta Platforms. Expectations are high for them, too.

Advanced Micro Devices is not a member of the Magnificent Seven, but it benefits from many of the same trends. It fell 1.9% even though it matched analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter and edged past them for revenue. Its forecast for revenue in the upcoming quarter fell short of analysts’ estimates.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, stocks were getting some lift from easing yields in the bond market.

Lower yields can mean less pressure on the economy and financial system, while also encouraging investors to pay higher prices for stocks. They’ve been generally dropping since autumn on expectations that a cooldown in inflation will push the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates several times this year.

The Fed on Wednesday left its main interest rate steady at its highest level since 2001. Perhaps disappointingly for investors, it also made clear that it “does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward” its goal of 2%.

Treasury yields in the bond market erased some of their losses from earlier in the day after the Fed made that statement, which forced traders to push out some bets that the Fed could begin cutting rates as soon as March.

“Given how strong the economy has been, the Fed probably figures it can err on the side of cutting later and slower than what the market is pricing,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “Come March the Fed might want to tee up a cut.”

The Fed made clear that it will watch incoming data reports to ensure inflation is definitely moving down toward its goal. It may have found a couple reports from earlier Wednesday encouraging.

One report said that growth in pay and benefits for U.S. workers was slower in the final three months of 2023 than economists expected. While all workers would like bigger raises, the cooler-than-expected data could help calm one of the Fed’s big fears: that too-big pay gains would trigger a vicious cycle that ends up keeping inflation high.

A separate report from the ADP Research Institute also suggested hiring by non-government employers was softer in January than economists expected. The Fed and Wall Street are hoping that the job market cools by just the right amount, enough to keep a lid on inflation but not so much that it causes a recession

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 3.98% from 4.04% late Tuesday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes slumped sharply again in China amid continued worries about a weak economic recovery and troubles for the country’s heavily indebted property developers.

Stocks were mixed elsewhere in Asia and in Europe.

KUTZTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The spotlight will be on Gobbler’s Knob in western Pennsylvania early Friday morning, when handlers of a groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil will announce whether he saw his own shadow and predicts six more weeks of winter or an early spring.

Thousands are expected to attend the annual event that exploded in popularity after the 1993 Bill Murray movie, “Groundhog Day.”

It’s part of a tradition rooted in European agricultural life, marking the midpoint between the shortest day of the year on the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s also a time of year that figures in the Celtic calendar and the Christian holiday of Candlemas.

And in eastern and central Pennsylvania, where people of German descent have been watching the groundhog’s annual emergence from hibernation for centuries, there’s a tradition of groundhog clubs and celebrations that are independent of Phil.

Some dismiss the Punxsutawney event as an unworthy rival to their own festivities, which they say forecast more accurate weather predictions. There have been weather-predicting groundhogs in at least 28 U.S. states and Canadian provinces, and less formal celebrations far and wide.

One thing it’s not: serious business.

“We know this is silly; we know this is fun,” said Marcy Galando, executive director of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. “We want people to come here with a sense of humor.”

WHAT ARE THE HOLIDAY’S ORIGINS?

Celtic people across Europe marked the four days that are midway between the winter solstice, the spring equinox, the summer solstice and the fall equinox. What the Celts called Imbolc is also around when Christians celebrate Candlemas, timed to Joseph and Mary’s presentation of Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Ancient people would watch the sun, stars and animal behavior to guide farming practices and other decisions, and the practice of watching an animal’s emergence from winter hibernation to forecast weather has roots in a similar German tradition involving badgers or bears. Pennsylvania Germans apparently substituted the groundhog, endemic to the eastern and midwestern United States.

Historians have found a reference in an 1841 diary to groundhog weather forecasts in early February among families of German descent in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, according to the late Don Yoder, a University of Pennsylvania professor whose 2003 book about Groundhog Day explored the Celtic connection.

Yoder concluded the festival has roots in “ancient, undoubtedly prehistoric, weather lore.”

WHY IS IT CELEBRATED IN PUNXSUTAWNEY?

Punxsutawney is an area that Pennsylvania Germans settled — and in the late 1880s started celebrating the holiday by picnicking, hunting and eating groundhogs.

Members of Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, organized in 1899, care for Phil at a customized space beside Punxsutawney Memorial Library — where there’s a window with a view into the creature’s burrow.

The Punxsutawney groundhog makes predictions but he’s not always predictable. The designated groundhog emerged before sunrise in 1929 and didn’t come out until late afternoon in 1941.

The Bill Murray movie caused such a resurgence of interest that two years after it came out, event organizers voiced concern about rowdy crowds drinking all night, people climbing trees and others stripping to their underwear. In 1998, a groundhog club leader wearing a $4,000 groundhog suit reported being assaulted by a half-dozen young men.

Alcohol is now prohibited at Gobbler’s Knob, Phil’s spot some 80 miles (123 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh.

DOES PHIL HAVE ANY COMPETITION?

The early festivities in Punxsutawney were followed in 1907 by folks in Quarryville, a farming area in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania’s southeastern corner. The roughly 240 members of the Slumbering Groundhog Lodge there report the winter forecast from Octoraro Orphie, or least via his well-preserved remains.

Quarryville lodge board chair Charlie Hart said the organization has dinners and other social events throughout the year but is largely focused on Groundhog Day.

Hart credits Orphie as a far better forecaster than Phil.

“Octoraro Orphie has never been wrong,” Hart said. “This is the 116th year, and in the previous 115 he has been right on the money every year.”

WHISTLE PIGS ON THE MENU?

The groundhog is a member of the squirrel family and related to chipmunks and prairie dogs. It’s also known as a woodchuck, a whistle pig — or in the parlance of Pennsylvania Dutch, a language with German roots, a “grundsau.”

Groundhogs are herbivores that are themselves edible to humans, although they are not widely consumed. Their lifespan in the wild is typically two or three years.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission says about 36,000 hunters reported killing more than 200,000 groundhogs last year.

Game Commission spokesperson Travis Lau found groundhog a bit stinky to clean, with thick skin.

“It was actually really good, no doubt about it — and to my taste, more like beef than venison is,” Lau said. “The whole family ate it and liked it, and everybody had apprehensions.”

Some cooks advise groundhogs are best taken when they are young and after clover is in bloom, since a clover diet is thought to improve the meat’s taste.

WHEN DID CLUBS AND LODGES SPRING UP?

Starting in the 1930s, groundhog lodges opened in eastern Pennsylvania. They were social clubs with similarities to Freemasonry.

Intended to preserve Pennsylvania German culture and traditions, clubs would sometimes fine those who were caught speaking anything but their Pennsylvania Dutch language at meetings. They were traditionally all-male groups and 15 such clubs remain active.

They all share the unifying feature of a groundhog’s weather prognostication, said William W. Donner, a Kutztown University anthropology professor and author of “Serious Nonsense,” a book about such lodges and other efforts to preserve German heritage.

“I think it’s just one of these traditional rituals that people enjoy participating in, that maybe take them away from modern life for 15 minutes,” Donner said.

WILL PHIL GET IT RIGHT THIS YEAR?

Some well-meaning efforts have sought to determine Phil’s accuracy, but what “six weeks of winter” means is debatable. Claims that a groundhog has or has not seen its shadow — and that it’s able to communicate that to a human — are also fair territory for skeptics and the humor impaired.

By all accounts, Phil predicts more winter far more often than he predicts an early spring.

Groundhogs are mostly solitary creatures who start to emerge in midwinter to find a mate. The science behind whether they can make any accurate weather predictions is problematic at best.

Among the skeptics is the National Centers for Environmental Information, within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The government agency last year compared Phil’s record with U.S. national temperatures over the prior decade and concluded he was right only 40% of the time.

LEVITTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A man accused of beheading his father in suburban Philadelphia and posting a gruesome video on social media that shows him holding up the severed head has been charged with first-degree murder and abusing a corpse, authorities said Wednesday.

Justin Mohn was armed and had jumped a fence at a National Guard facility about 100 miles (161 kilometers) away when he was arrested late Tuesday, hours after the killing, a Guard spokeswoman said.

The father, identified as Michael Mohn, was found beheaded in the bathroom of his home in Levittown, where court records said his 32-year-old son also lived. Police said Justin Mohn was taken into custody at Fort Indiantown Gap.

Police said Michael Mohn’s wife, Denice Mohn, arrived home and found the body about 7 p.m. Tuesday. Officers found Mohn’s body and bloody rubber gloves, according to a police affidavit. Denice Mohn told police her husband’s white Toyota Corolla and her son were missing.

Police said the YouTube video, which was more than 14 minutes long, showed Justin Mohn picking up his father’s decapitated head and identifying him by name. Police said it appeared Mohn was reading from a script as he railed about the government.

In a statement, YouTube said the video, which was uploaded and not livestreamed, was removed for violating its graphic violence policy and that Mohn’s channel was shut down.

Mohn embraced violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he published online going back several years. In August 2020, Mohn published an online “pamphlet” in which he tried to make the case that people born in or after 1991 — his birth year — should carry out what he termed a “bloody revolution.” He also complained at length about a wrongful termination lawsuit that he lost, and encouraged assassinations of family members and public officials.

In the video posted after the killing, he described his father as a 20-year federal employee and called him a traitor to his country. He also espoused a variety of conspiracy theories and rants about the Biden administration, immigration and the border, fiscal policy, urban crime and the war in Ukraine.

Mohn had driven his father’s car to Fort Indiantown Gap, where he was taken into custody, Capt. Pete Feeney of the Middletown Township Police Department said.

Officials at Fort Indiantown Gap were told late Tuesday that Mohn’s cellphone had pinged nearby, according to Angela Watson, communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

Investigators caught up with Mohn inside the National Guard base, where he was walking after having apparently jumped the fence. He had a gun when he was caught, Watson said. She said he has never been a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard.

The house where the body was found is in a suburban development of single-family homes. No one answered the door there early Wednesday.

Neighbors out walking dogs Wednesday morning described Justin Mohn as a regular walker in the development, someone they recognized and described as weird.

Bart DeHaven said he called police a handful of times since the summer after Justin Mohn sat on a raised manhole cover in a park directly across the street from his home and stared at his house.

“It’s just sad,” DeHaven said. “He should have got some kind of help.”

Carrie McCarthy said she saw him walking frequently and sitting in the wooded area in the neighborhood. She said someone sent her the YouTube video, which left her stunned.

“I screamed. I totally screamed,” she said. “I opened the video and I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s they guy I see every day, and I knew something was unhinged.’”

Mohn, who also was arrested on a weapons possession charge, was arraigned early Wednesday and held without bail. He is scheduled for a hearing on Feb. 8. A spokesperson for the Bucks County district attorney’s office said they did not expect to comment publicly about the case Wednesday.

An attorney for Mohn wasn’t listed in court records Wednesday morning and a message seeking comment on his behalf was left at a phone listing for him. The court clerk’s office said it had no record of a lawyer representing him.

(Matt Drzik/Beaver County Radio)

Nearly one million dollars has been awarded to the city of Pittsburgh to completely replace a pair of traffic signals in the downtown area, as announced by Democratic Senate leader Jay Costa on Tuesday.

The funding for the traffic upgrades come from the Automated Red Light Enforcement program run by PennDOT. The two intersections that will be receiving complete replacement will be the intersection of Brownsville Road and Becks Run Road/Biscayne Drive, and the intersection of Ward Street and the Boulevard of the Allies.

Additionally, nearly $300,000 was awarded to the borough of Edgewood for improvements to the Braddock Avenue corridor.

No date for the beginning of the renovations was announced.

(Matt Drzik/Beaver County Radio)

Improvement work along McKnight Road in Pittsburgh will be beginning on Monday February 5, weather permitting.

PennDOT District 11 made the announcement Tuesday afternoon, stating that crews will begin pipe and drainage cleaning between Venture Street and Perrymont Road. Motorists can expect around-the-clock single-lane restrictions throughout the project in the areas on McKnight Road which have three lanes of traffic.

Work on the $25.5 million McKnight Road renovations will conclude in the spring of 2025.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Steelers are hoping Arthur Smith can turn around one of the NFL’s most underachieving offenses.

The Steelers are nearing an agreement to make Smith their new offensive coordinator, multiple sources told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The sources spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the deal was not official.

Smith would come to Pittsburgh just weeks after the Atlanta Falcons fired him as head coach following three straight 7-10 seasons. The magic Smith was able to produce while serving as the offensive coordinator in Tennessee in 2019 and 2020 — when the Titans finished 12th and then second in total offense — never materialized in Atlanta, which finished in the bottom half of the league in yards and points during Smith’s tenure.

He could get a fresh start with the Steelers, who managed a 10-7 record and a playoff berth despite an offense that ranked 25th in yards and 28th in points and didn’t show any real signs of life until the final three weeks when third-string quarterback Mason Rudolph spurred a late winning streak that helped Pittsburgh sneak into the postseason.

Steelers president Art Rooney II said Monday that while the team still believes in starting quarterback Kenny Pickett — who endured a bumpy first full season as a starter before sustaining an ankle injury in early December that forced him to watch from the sideline — it’s also time for Pittsburgh to get “quality play out of the quarterback position going forward.”

Rooney also indicated he’d be interested in bringing back the free-agent-to-be Rudolph to compete with Pickett during training camp, praising Rudolph for his play down the stretch.

Smith’s charge with whoever is behind center will be to come up with an approach that puts more points on the board to take some of the pressure off Pittsburgh’s star-laden defense. The Steelers have finished 21st or worse in scoring in four of the past five seasons, one of the reasons the team took the unusual step of firing offensive coordinator Matt Canada just before Thanksgiving, the club’s first in-season dismissal of a coordinator or head coach since World War II.

There are players to build around. Pittsburgh has one of the best running back tandems in the league in Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren. Wide receiver George Pickens has shown flashes of brilliance, though those flashes have been tempered with bouts of petulance. Wide receiver Diontae Johnson is one of the league’s better route-runners and tight end Pat Freiermuth is a quality playmaker when healthy.

Rooney said on Monday the team was close to making a hire. Less than 24 hours later, the team was closing in on its man.

“We’re looking forward to have someone come in and take a fresh approach who can help our young players grow and perform and have the offense perform at a consistently high level,” Rooney said.

Something that hasn’t happened since the height of the “Killer B” era in the mid-2010s when Ben Roethlisberger was throwing passes to Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell was one of the most productive all-around backs in the league.

The Steelers have somehow stayed competitive almost in spite of the offense, but they’ve also been exposed in the postseason. Pittsburgh has dropped five straight playoff games, four of them by double digits.

Smith would seem to be a good stylistic fit with the Steelers. Pittsburgh general manager Omar Khan and assistant general manager Andy Weidl are trying to build a physical team that likes to lean on the run. Smith was able to install a system that exploited the talents of Titans star running back Derrick Henry as Tennessee reached the postseason in each of Smith’s two years calling the plays.

(Photo/BCR Archives)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will visit the eastern Ohio community that was devastated by a fiery train derailment in February 2023 that displaced thousands of residents and left many fearing potential health effects from the toxic chemicals that spilled when a Norfolk Southern train went off the tracks.

A White House official said Wednesday that Biden will visit East Palestine in February, a year after the derailment. A date for the Democratic president’s trip was not given. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because Biden’s plans had yet to be formally announced.

The Feb. 3, 2023, derailment forced thousands of people from their homes near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Area residents still have lingering fears about potential health effects from the toxic chemicals that spilled and from the vinyl chloride that was released a few days after the crash to keep five tank cars from exploding.

The absence of a visit by Biden had become a subject of persistent questioning at the White House, as well as among residents in East Palestine. Some residents have said they felt forgotten as time marched on without a presidential visit and as they watched Biden fly to the scenes of other disasters, such as the wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui and hurricanes in Florida.

The Biden administration defended its response right after the toxic freight train derailment, even as local leaders and members of Congress demanded that more be done. The White House said then that it had “mobilized a robust, multi-agency effort to support the people of East Palestine, Ohio,” and it noted that officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Transportation Safety Board and other agencies were at the rural site within hours even though Biden didn’t immediately visit.

Asked last week about a potential Biden visit to Ohio, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she had nothing to announce.

“When it is, when it is appropriate or helps … the community for him to be there, obviously, he will be there. He’s done that,” she said at her press briefing last Friday.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s in a rural area, urban area, suburban area, red state, blue state, the president has always been there to … assist and be there for the community,” Jean-Pierre added. “So, when it is helpful, he certainly will do that.”

She again defended the administration’s response, repeating that federal employees were on the ground providing assistance within hours of the derailment.

Biden ordered federal agencies to hold Norfolk Southern accountable for the derailment and appointed an official from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to oversee East Palestine’s recovery.

Norfolk Southern has estimated that it will cost the company at least $803 million to remove all the hazardous chemicals, help the community and deal with lawsuits and related penalties.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency will assign artists to treasured bodies of water in the United States under a new program announced Tuesday at a White House-sponsored conference on exploring ways to use the arts and humanities as another instrument for problem-solving.

Leaders from government, the arts, academia and philanthropy gathered in Washington for “Healing, Bridging, Thriving: A Summit on Arts and Culture in our Communities.” Panel discussions focused on turning to the arts and humanities to solve challenges, from improving health to bridging divides.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the White House Domestic Policy Council hosted the daylong conference, which was the product of a September 2022 executive order from President Joe Biden.

Neera Tanden, who advises the Democratic president on domestic policy issues, said in an interview with The Associated Press before the summit that the arts help “people to see each other and understand how we’re connected,” which can help “mend the social fabric of the country.”

Maria Rosario Jackson, the NEA chair, in a separate interview said the conference is an “unprecedented opportunity for people from different sectors to come together and lift up and explore some of the things that are possible when one thinks of the arts as not being confined to a narrow sector, but woven and integrated into other things we care about.”

Discussions focused on using the arts and humanities to improve health and infrastructure and promote a healthy democracy. Participants included soprano Renee Fleming and actor Anna Deavere Smith. Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, was also scheduled to participate.

Radhika Fox, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Water, announced the first-ever artist-in-residence program “to unleash the power of arts and culture to support water restoration and climate resilient efforts around the country.”

To start, artists will be embedded in national estuaries and urban waters federal partnerships in six regions of the country: Seattle, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, greater Philadelphia, Boston and the New York-New Jersey area. Each watershed will receive $200,00 to support the artist.

Jackson and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will co-chair a new government-wide working group on the arts, health and civic infrastructure, working with federal agencies to find ways to include the arts and humanities in these areas. HHS and the NEA have a long history of working together to improve health using the arts, including through music, Becerra said.

NEA is also committing $5 million for an initiative to support the work of artists and arts organizations that contribute to the health and well-being of individuals and communities.

Separately, the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities are collaborating on United We Stand: Connecting through Culture, an initiative that leverages the arts and humanities to combat hate-fueled violence. The program was launched in 2023, a year after Biden convened a similarly named summit at the White House focused on countering violence motivated by hate.

NEH committed $3 million to the program in 2023, and NEA is offering an additional $2 million.

Shelly Lowe, chair of the NEH, said art has an important role to play in the humanities.

“Art gives you a good sense of people’s cultures. That’s through painting, that’s through food, that’s through performances and music,” Lowe said in an interview before the summit. “They’re so tied together it’s hard to separate the two.”

Biden’s executive order said the arts, humanities and museum and library services are essential to the well-being, health, vitality and democracy of the nation.

“They are the soul of America,” Biden wrote in the order, adding that, under his leadership, they “will be integrated into strategies, policies and programs that advance the economic development, well-being and resilience of all communities, especially those that have historically been underserved.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro wants to devote millions of dollars to creating a 10-year economic development plan, including developing commercial and industrial sites, revitalizing an aging workforce and better competing with neighboring states to entice big businesses to choose Pennsylvania.

The plan, which Shapiro announced a week out from his formal budget address, seeks to address workforce shortages, ease challenges for startups and tech spinoffs and boost funding for economic development incentives.

Shapiro’s administration will focus its funding in five industries: agriculture, energy, life sciences, manufacturing and robotics and technology.

Shapiro has been eyeing such a strategy since last year, when he told legislators during his inaugural budget address that he was “competitive as hell — and I’m sick and tired of losing to other states.”

The announcement comes as neighboring states are pouring incentives into luring multibillion-dollar microchip, electric vehicle and battery factories. That includes Ohio landing a $20 billion factory by chipmaker Intel in 2022, which officials say has the power to create a new technology hub in the state.

But business-sector officials say Pennsylvania lacks huge tracts of available land to attract such projects.

Shapiro has worked to shorten the wait time to receive licenses and permits, and he has touted Pennsylvania’s role in being awarded federal funding to establish two hydrogen hubs in the state as part of President Joe Biden’s effort to fight climate change.

But challenges still abound. Even though Pennsylvania’s payrolls hit a record high in December, the state’s labor force has lagged behind pre-pandemic levels. The state’s economy is less dynamic than some other states and its workforce is relatively older and slower-growing.

Shapiro has warned that being competitive would take money, and he plans to ask lawmakers for millions to kick start the plan.

A “major investment” would go to site development, building on a pilot program that provided grant funding to do site assessments and prepare land for remediation as a sweetener to commercial and industrial businesses.

For small businesses and commercial corridors, Shapiro is proposing $25 million. Another $3.5 million will create the new Pennsylvania Regional Challenge, which is aimed at incentivizing regional growth. To further develop the workforce and create more internships as a way to keep people in the state, he is asking for $2 million.

Other funds will support start-ups and entrepreneurs, with $10 million set aside for the agricultural industry.

(AP)

Wall Street limped early Tuesday with corporate earnings rolling in and the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision imminent.

Futures for the S&P 500 and futures for the Dow Jones industrials each slipped less than 0.2% before the bell.

UPS tumbled more than 7% after the package delivery company unexpectedly dialed back expectations for the year.

General Motors climbed nearly 8% as the automaker’s profit and sales rose by double-digit percentages last year.

Microsoft, Google and Starbucks report their latest financial results after the bell Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, the US reports on job openings for November and the Conference Board releases consumer confidence data for January.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will make its next decision on what to do with interest rates. Most expect the Fed will no make any changes, but there is hope that it may cut rates in March. That would be the first downward move since the Fed began dramatically raising interest rates two years ago to get inflation under control.

There is a lot of evidence suggesting that the Fed may be able to pull off a so-called economic “soft landing” after a period of accelerated inflation. The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge cooled further last month even as the economy kept growing briskly, a trend sure to be welcomed at the White House as President Joe Biden seeks re-election in a race that could pivot on his economic stewardship.

On Friday, the U.S. government will release its monthly jobs report. Economists expect continued growth in hiring, but at a cooler pace. That’s exactly what the Fed wants to see after surging U.S. growth contributed to rising prices.

Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, Britain’s FTSE 100 advanced 0.6%, Germany’s DAX rose 0.2% and the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.5%.

Shares in property developer China Evergrande Group, the world’s most heavily indebted real estate company with more than $300 billion in liabilities, remained suspended from trading after a Hong Kong court ordered the company to be liquidated because it is insolvent.

But shares in China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group closed 4.4% higher after they resumed trading following a suspension on Monday. Evergrande Property Services fell lost 3.9%.

Other property companies led the decline in Hong Kong, where the benchmark Hang Seng index sank 2.3% to 15,703.45. Country Garden tumbled 5.7% and Sunac China Holdings was down 7.1%. Guangzhou R&F Properties lost 5.5%.

Technology companies also retreated, with food delivery company Meituan down 2.8% and e-commerce giant Alibaba falling 2%.

The Shanghai Composite index gave up 1.8% to 2,830.53.

Chinese regulators have been moving to prop up the markets, among the world’s worst performing so far this year, amid worries about the troubled property industry and slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

“Skepticism persists regarding the equity plunge protection plan,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. “While measures akin to a band-aid on a broken leg may temporarily boost stock prices, they do little to stabilize earnings or foster growth.”

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index edged 0.1% higher to 36,065.86 and the Kospi in South Korea edged 0.1% lower, to 2,498.81. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 picked up 0.3% to 7,600.20.

Bangkok’s SET lost 0.2% while India’s Sensex shed 1.1%.

In other trading Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gave back 20 cents at $76.58 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It dropped $1.23 to settle at $76.78 a barrel on Monday.

A barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, lost 28 cents to $81.55 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar fell to 147.36 yen from 147.50 yen. The euro rose to $1.0842 from $1.0835.

On Monday, U.S. stocks gained as they kicked off a week where Wall Street’s most influential stocks may show whether the huge expectations built up for them are justified.

The S&P 500 gained 0.8% and the Dow industrials climbed 0.6%. The Nasdaq composite jumped 1.1%.