US stock market opens lower as Fed meeting set to begin

ANKARA

US stocks were lower at the opening bell on Tuesday with volatility remaining high as the Federal Reserve kicks off a two-day meeting.

The Dow Jones was down 96 points to 34,885 with Coca-Cola, IBM and Microsoft each losing around 0.3%. The S&P 500 fell 7 to 4,182 at 9.42 a.m. EDT (1342GMT).

The Nasdaq was off 17 points to 14,121 with Google's parent Alphabet shaving 0.4% as investors await an earnings report after the closing bell.

Tesla's stock shed 3.3% despite the electric carmaker posting on Monday record net income of $438 million in the January-March period, which soared 2638% from $16 million during the same period last year.

Although the company said on Feb. 8 that it bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and would begin accepting it as payment for products, it sold $272 million worth of the cryptocurrency during the first quarter.

Bitcoin continued its recovery following a week-long slump and was just below the $55,000 level, gaining 2%. Ethereum was just above $2,550 with a 2.6% gain.

The VIX index was still high at 17.89 with a 1.4% daily increase, keeping volatility and uncertainty before the Federal Reserve meeting.

The central bank is expected to keep interest rates unchanged but investors will focus on Fed Chair Jerome Powell's possible hints about when rates would be raised and comments on the bank's asset purchase program.