Fed sends Wall Street lower

New York - Signs that the Federal Reserve may be reticent to launch a fresh round of stimulus sent Wall Street lower on Tuesday.

Amid amped-up market expectations, the Fed published its minutes for its March 13 policy meeting, which showed there was little sign of a quick move by the Fed to juice the economy.

"(The) minutes confirmed that there was a significant movement away from additional stimulus," said Stephen Stanley, an economist with Pierpont Securities.

Stanley added that a solid unemployment report this Friday would probably be "the final nail in the coffin" of plans for new measures.

The prospect of reduced liquidity sent markets lower.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 64.94 points to finish the session at 13 199.55.

The Nasdaq was down 6.13 points, to 3 113.57 points.

The S&P 500 shed 5.73 points to 1 413.31.

An increase in US factory orders in February left Wall Street unmoved earlier in the day.

The Commerce Department reported that orders had increased $6.0bn or 1.3% to $468.4bn for the month, slightly less than expected.

Among individual stocks Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems all lost roughly 2%.

McDonald's, American Express, Merck, Home Depot and IBM were the only Dow components in the black.

Bond prices fell sharply. The 10-year Treasury yield rose 0.09 points to 2.28%. The 30-year yield rose to 3.41%, up 0.07 points.

Bond prices and yields move in the opposite direction.