Stocks open lower ahead of the Fed minutes

Stocks opened lower ahead of the release of the Federal Reserve's meeting minutes later on Wednesday.

Near 9:34 a.m. ET, the Dow was down 66 points (0.38%), the S&P 500 was down 6 points (0.30%) and the Nasdaq was down 6 points (0.13%).

Stocks closed lower Tuesday, with all three indexes down about 1%. The S&P 500 briefly returned negative for the year during the session.

At 2 p.m. ET, the Federal Reserve will release minutes of its April meeting. They could give markets a sense of what the Fed may do in June; right now, the general feeling is that the Fed will sit it out with raising rates, although expectations are rising.

On Tuesday, Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart and San Francisco Fed president John Williams both said they would not rule out a June interest-rate hike. This kind of talk has sent jitters through markets of late, and appeared to be one of the reasons why stocks turned lower on Tuesday.

In earnings, Target joined other retailers reporting earnings that were weaker than analysts expected. The company beat on earnings per share, but sales missed forecasts.

The company expects second-quarter same-store sales to be in a range of flat to down 2%. Its shares fell 7% pre-market.

But like Home Depot, Lowe's topped expectations due to a strong housing market and demand for home improvement.