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Equities lower

NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks drifted lower at midday despite a revival in technology stocks, with eyes focused on the FOMC meeting.

The Fed is largely expected to leave monetary policy unchanged, but the market is in limbo amid jitters over a possible surprise. The Fed cut rates July 6 for the first time in nearly three years. The Dow 30 lost five to about 4610.

Losers beat gainers 11-8 on about 149 million shares.

Meanwhile, several technology stocks recouped some of their losses from Monday's late sell-off. Philadelphia Stock Exchange's semiconductor index rose six points, or about 2.40 percent, to 282 after tumbling six percent Monday.

Intel, which led Monday's tech sell-off after analysts trimmed third-quarter estimates, rose 1-3/8 to 61-5/8. The shares lost 4-5/8 Monday. Applied Materials jumped five to 110 after shedding 8-1/4 Monday. But bellwether IBM, which fell 4-5/8 Monday on news it would delay the general release of a new mainframe storage device, lost 3/4 to 106.-Reuter