Wall Street ends lower on tariff worry as Fed decision eyed

The Fed will release its latest policy statement on Wednesday, where the central bank is widely expected to keep interest rates unchanged, along with its updated summary of economic projections (SEP).

Markets are currently pricing in about 60 basis points (bps) of cuts from the Fed this year, although several U.S. central bank officials have cautioned against the Fed moving too quickly on rates and said they would wait to see the impact of tariffs in economic data before making any policy shifts.

«There's just great uncertainty here about the tariffs, how extensive they are going to be, how that's going to economically impact us, how much the Fed might ease eventually and the economy in general,» said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York.

«There is a lot of confusion out there, and when there's confusion, when there isn't a real opportunity for stocks to go up and for companies to expand and make more money, there's fear.»

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 260.32 points, or 0.62%, to 41,581.31, the S&P 500 lost 60.46 points, or 1.07%, to 5,614.66 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 304.55 points, or 1.71%, to 17,504.12.

Adding to inflation concerns, U.S. import prices unexpectedly rose in February amid higher costs for consumer goods.

Stocks had recently shown some signs of stabilizing after several weeks of declines that sent the S&P 500 and Nasdaq down more than 10% from their recent highs, also known as correction territory.

The blue-chip Dow is slightly