Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com WALL STREET HITS THE SLOPES AFTER HINT OF A LIFT (0958 EST/1458 GMT) After stock futures hinted at a pale green start to the week, Wall Street defied those expectations on Monday by heading lower after the opening bell. The three major U.S. stock indexes appeared to be cooling their heels after S&P 500 hit a record closing high on Friday and notched its best biggest weekly percentage gain since February Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Amazon.com (AMZN.O) weighed heaviest, with Apple Inc (AAPL.O) bucking megacap tech-plus trend following a target price hike from JPMorgan. The gadget maker hit an new intraday high and is on the brink of becoming the only company in the world to have crossed the $3 trillion market value mark. The Federal Reserve is expected to convene tomorrow for its two-day meeting, and its concluding statement and Q&A will be scrutinized for clues as to the extent to which the central bank will shorten the timeline of expected tightening of its accommodative monetary policy. read more Powell & company will most certainly be talking about inflation, which continues to sizzle, as evidences by Friday"s hot CPI reading which showed the highest annual headline increase in nearly four decades. read more Here"s your opening snapshot: (Stephen Culp) ***** NASDAQ COMPOSITE: STOKING THE FURNACE? (0900 EST/1400 GMT) Despite less than stellar breadth readings on Friday along with the S&P 500"s (.SPX) fresh record-high close read more , the Nasdaq New High/New Low (NH/NL) index, has made a constructive turn: This measure of internal strength may have become sufficiently washed out with the Nasdaq"s (.IXIC) recent weakness. After falling to 12.5% on December 6 read more , which was its lowest reading since early-April 2020, the NH/NL index has now risen four-straight days. In so doing, this measure ended Friday at 21.1% which put it above its descending 10-day moving average, at 19.5%, for the first time since November 12. read more It now remains to be seen if last week"s sharp NH/NL index upturn from especially depressed levels will lead to the broader Nasdaq re-heating, and therefore, fuel a more sustained IXIC rise. Indeed, there certainly is room for the NH/NL index to rise before it will encounter resistance lines from its highs earlier this year. The measure"s early November peak was at 75.7%. Of note, current readings on the NYSE show a similar picture as the Nasdaq. After also falling to its lowest level since early-April 2020, the NYSE"s measure also ended Friday above its 10-DMA. A Nasdaq NH/NL index violation of its Dec. 6 low can open the door for a test of its March 2020 trough at 1.2%, something which could put the IXIC on ice. (Terence Gabriel) ***** FOR MONDAY"S LIVE MARKETS" POSTS PRIOR TO 0900 EST/1400 GMT - CLICK HERE: read more Terence Gabriel is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.