NEW YORK, July 25 (Reuters) – U.S. stocks were down on Monday afternoon as investors were cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve meeting this week and earnings from several large-cap growth companies.

The S&P 500 Technology (.SPLRCT) and Consumer Discretionary (.SPLRCD) led declines among the major S&P sectors.

The Fed is expected to hike rates by 75 basis points at the end of its two-day monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, ending pandemic-era support for the U.S. economy.

Comments from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell after the announcement will be key. Investors fear that an aggressive pace of rate hikes could tip the economy into recession. Read more

“Right now, we’re just in a holding pattern waiting for all of these developments to materialize,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Stamford, Connecticut.

“Obviously we’re seeing more weakness in tech names. People are probably taking risks before profits.”

Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Meta Platforms Inc (META.O), are among the companies that must publish a quarterly earnings report this week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 20.32 points, or 0.06%, to 31,878.97, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 8.05 points, or 0.20%, to 3,953.58 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) fell 84.09 points, or 0.71%, to 11,750.03.

Additionally, advanced second-quarter GDP data released on Thursday is expected to be negative after the US economy contracted in the first three months of the year.

Newmont Corp (NEM.N) lost about 13% after the miner raised its full-year cost guidance and missed its second-quarter profit, hurt by falling gold prices and inflationary pressures. Read more

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a ratio of 1.34 to 1; on the Nasdaq, a 1.12-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 1 new 52-week high and 29 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 33 new highs and 87 new lows.

Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal and Aniruddha Ghosh in Bengaluru and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Anil D’Silva and David Gregorio

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