US Equity Indexes Pare Gains After Fed Meeting Minutes Show Divergent Opinion on Policy Path

03:51 PM EST, 02/18/2026 (MT Newswires) -- US equity indexes pared gains ahead of the close on Wednesday after minutes from the January Federal Open Market Committee meeting showed a diversity of opinion among policymakers.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.7% to 22,735.1, with the S&P 500 up 0.4% to 6,873.4, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.2% higher at 49,632.8.

Minutes of the Jan. 27-28 meeting showed diversity among policymakers, with some advocating for further rate cuts, a few saying the FOMC should pause for the foreseeable future, and others suggesting the next rate move could be upward if inflation rebounds.

"Several participants indicated that they would have supported a two-sided description of the committee's future interest-rate decisions, reflecting the possibility that upward adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate could be appropriate if inflation remains at above-target levels," the central bank's January meeting minutes stated, according to a note from Stifel.

In the final leg of trading, energy and consumer discretionary led the gainers. Real estate and utilities were the worst performers.

Meanwhile, Meta Platforms (META) said late Tuesday that it has entered a multiyear partnership with Nvidia (NVDA) to build hyperscale data centers using millions of Blackwell and Rubin GPUs alongside Arm-based Grace CPUs. Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) rose 1.5%.

iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV), with assets of about $6 billion, climbed 1.4% to $82.36, reflecting a diminishing of the AI-scare trade that recently hit software companies particularly hard.

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