07:13 AM EDT, 03/18/2025 (MT Newswires) -- US benchmark equity indexes were trending downwards before the open Tuesday ahead of the Federal Reserve's latest two-day monetary policy meeting.

Standard & Poor's 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.3% each in premarket activity, while the Nasdaq was off 0.4%. Asian and European exchanges were pointing higher.

The Fed's monetary policy committee is scheduled to kick off its meeting on interest rates later today with a decision due Wednesday. Markets are widely expecting the central bank to hold the benchmark lending rate steady, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Also on Tuesday's economic calendar, the housing starts and permits report and the import and export prices report, both for February, post at 8:30 am ET. Last month's industrial production bulletin follows at 9:15 am.

KE Holdings ( BEKE ) , XPeng ( XPEV ) , Tencent Music Entertainment ( TME ) , Elbit Systems ( ESLT ) , Flowco (FLOC) and IHS Holding ( IHS ) report their latest financial results before the bell, among others. HealthEquity ( HQY ) and StoneCo ( STNE ) release their earnings after the markets close.

Before the opening bell, bitcoin dropped 2.1% to $82,766, West Texas Intermediate crude oil inclined 1.4% to $68.49 a barrel, yields on 10-year Treasuries retreated 1.9 basis points to 4.3% and gold rose 0.8% to $3,031 an ounce.