02:04 PM EDT, 03/19/2024 (MT Newswires) -- US benchmark equity indexes were higher intraday as the Federal Reserve kicked off its two-day monetary policy meeting.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.6% at 39,017.43 after midday Tuesday, while the S&P 500 rose 0.3% to 5,165.9. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.3% to 16,145.2. Among sectors, energy led the gainers. Communication services, real estate, and materials were in the red.

Markets are widely expecting the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee to hold interest rates steady at 5.25% to 5.50% on Wednesday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. That would mark a fifth straight pause.

"The Federal Open Market Committee will remain noncommittal about the timing of the first rate cut as inflation has surprised to the upside recently and there are no glaring fissures in the economy," Oxford Economics said in a Tuesday note. "The Fed will keep their forward guidance unchanged while stressing that they need further evidence that inflation is on a sustainable path toward their 2% target before cutting interest rates."

The US two-year yield fell 3.6 basis points to 4.7% intraday, while the 10-year rate declined 3.4 basis points to 4.30%.

In economic news, privately owned housing starts in the US were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.52 million in February, up 10.7% sequentially, government data showed. The consensus was for a 1.44 million print in a survey compiled by Bloomberg.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil rose 1.3% to $83.80 per barrel intraday.

In company news, International Paper (IP) named Andrew Silvernail as chief executive, effective May 1, succeeding Mark Sutton, who will continue as chairman. The company's shares jumped 10%, the top gainer on the S&P 500.

Super Micro Computer's (SMCI) shares slumped 9.4%, the steepest decline on the S&P 500. The company filed a registration statement for the sale of 2 million common shares.

Nvidia's (NVDA) new Blackwell computing platform, along with a series of artificial intelligence chips, should give the semiconductor giant a competitive edge in the AI accelerator market, analysts said. The company's shares were up 1% intraday.

Gold was down 0.2% at $2,159.20 per troy ounce, and silver slid 0.6% to $25.12 per ounce.