Wall Street eyes rebound as Fed meeting starts

Wall Street investors are awaiting the outcome of a two-day Federal Reserve meeting that kicks off Tuesday where officials are expected to announce a reduction in its bond buying program by another $10 billion to $65 billion as the U.S. economy continues to improve.

Ahead of the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average index futures advanced 0.4%, Standard & Poor's 500 index futures also added 0.4%, but Nasdaq index futures were on the decline, falling 0.4%.

The Dow is looking to snap a five-session losing streak, its worst stretch since a similar losing skid back in December. The Dow's 3.77% drop in that five-day span is its worst since April 2012 and the nearly 621-point drop is its worst since November 2011.

U.S. stocks ended down Monday as Wall Street failed to rebound from last week's big sell-off sparked by turbulence in emerging markets. The overall market is off to a bad start in 2014, after gaining almost 30% last year.

Stocks have been weighed down by stock valuations that are no longer cheap, an economic slowdown in China and the recent turbulence in developing economies. The start of the fourth-quarter earnings season has also gotten off to a sluggish, witnessed by Apple, which lowered its guidance for the coming quarter after topping earnings and revenue expectations for the just-ended quarter.

Apple shares (AAPL) fell over 7% in pre-market trade Tuesday after the company gave a weak forecast after the close of the prior session.

TECH SECTOR: Apple's iPhone-driven growth run may be over

Wall Street, however, got a boost before the market's opening bell when blue chip stocks DuPont and Ford Motor topped quarterly profit projections. After the closing bell, AT&T and Yahoo report earnings. Wall Street is hoping earnings start powering higher to offset some of the worries related to troubles in some emerging markets, where currencies are under pressure.

Wall Street is trying to discern whether the Dow's 4.5% drop to start 2014 is merely a! pullback or correction, or the start of a larger downturn.

MONDAY:

Stocks end lower after last week's sell-off

In Asia on Tuesday India's central bank raised its key interest rate to tame stubbornly high inflation and cut its economic growth forecast. The announcement of a quarter percentage point increase in the lending rate Tuesday to 8% sent Indian stocks lower. That added to losses accumulated during a sell-off in emerging markets that began late last week.

Trading elsewhere in Asia was restrained. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.2% to 14,980.16 and South Korea's Kospi edged up 0.3% to 1,916.93.

Benchmark crude for March delivery was up 16 cents to $95.87 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 92 cents to settle at $95.72 on Monday.

European shares were seeing a modest push higher, with benchmarks in the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Spain all moving up.

Contributing: Associated Press