US stocks hover near records ahead of likely Fed taper announcement as 2-day meeting kicks off

• US stocks hovered near records Tuesday after hitting all-time highs in the previous session.
• Investors are bracing for a potential announcement that the Fed will begin tapering asset purchases.

US stocks hovered near record highs Tuesday as investors awaited the start of the two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. The policy meeting is expected to culminate in an announcement by the central bank that it will begin tapering its asset purchases this month.

Major US indexes continued their rally after all three closed at records in the previous session, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly topping 36,000 intraday on Monday.

Here's where US indexes stood at the 9:30 a.m. ET open on Tuesday:

• S&P 500: 4,617.13, up 0.07%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 35,929.21, up 0.04% (15.37 points)
• Nasdaq Composite: 15,584.65, down 0.06%

Big name investors and commentators - from Mohamed El Erian to Bill Ackman - have been calling on the central bank to taper bond buying and hike rates to combat rising inflation. The market has been eyeing the November meeting as the date which the Fed will make its long-awaited announcement.

"We think Chair Powell will likely separate taper and rate hikes as two distinct decisions; the latter will depend on realized and future inflation at 2% or above coupled with achievement of maximum employment," Bank of America strategists said in a note on Tuesday.

They added that rate hikes are "a ways off" but Powell is "unlikely to push back on the market timing of rate hikes," which have been brought forward.

Stocks are up about 7% since the start October when companies began reporting earnings, data from Fundstrat showed. The research boutique added that 81% of all reported results have beaten estimates, with earnings per share coming in above the 6.9% consensus.

Tesla shares fell as much as 5% after its CEO Elon Musk said the electric-vehicle maker has not yet signed a contract with Hertz for its mega-order of 100,000 vehicles.

Meanwhile, Rivian, an electric-vehicle startup backed by Amazon, is targeting a market valuation as high as $60 billion at its hotly-anticipated IPO next week.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note fell to 1.566% from Monday's 1.573%.

Oil prices slightly fell ahead of an important meeting of the OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries on Thursday.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil slipped 0.05%, to $8401 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, also fell 0.09%, to $84.63 per barrel.

Gold slid 0.04%, to $1,790.63 per ounce.