Prior to the Fed rate decision, Wall Street makes a small gain.

As investors avoided making large wagers ahead of the Federal Reserve's announcement on interest rates later in the day, the major stock indexes on Wall Street edged up slightly on Wednesday.

The fed funds rate will likely increase by 0.5 percentage points to 4.25–4.50% from the US central bank. At 2:00 p.m. ET (1800 GMT), the decision will be made public. Chair Jerome Powell will then hold a press conference.

A Tuesday morning bounce on Wall Street was dampened by worries that the Fed would stick to its plan of raising interest rates, as evidenced by statistics showing that U.S. growth slowed to its lowest level in about a year in November.

"For a while, the stock market will reward decreasing inflation. The inflation rate is still in the sevens, and while I believe it is possible to decrease it to four without a rise in unemployment, it will be extremely challenging to get to the target rate "A managing director at Morgan Stanley Investment Management in Chicago, Andrew Slimmon, said.

The market is aware that ahead indications like the yield curve are flashing a warning that the economy may face more difficult times in the future and that we may also be setting ourselves up for earnings troubles.

The fastest rate increases since the 1980s have been made by the U.S. central bank, which has increased its policy rate by 375 basis points so far this year to a range of 3.75%-4.00% from close to zero.

The top fed-funds rate will remain at 4.625% after the central bank raises rates by another 25 basis points at its meeting in February, according to Morgan Stanley strategists.

In contrast, traders in the money market anticipate two additional increases of 25 basis points in 2019 that will raise the terminal rate to 4.82% by May. (FEDWATCH)

Risk assets like equities have been severely hit by concerns that aggressive interest rate increases by major central banks could send the global economy into a recession.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq IXIC have lost 15.3% and 27.9% of their respective value for the year, respectively, and are on pace to post their worst annual results since the financial crisis in 2008.

Due to the Fed's swift rate rises, the rate-sensitive S&P 500 real estate sector index S5REAS and growth index (.IGX) have experienced double-digit declines in 2022.

At 9:53 a.m. ET, the Nasdaq Composite IXIC was up 20.00 points, or 0.18%, at 11,276.82, the S&P 500 SPX was up 14.07 points, or 0.35%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI was up 137.28 points, or 0.40%, at 34,245.92.

Eight of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were in the black, headed by the technology and utility sectors (S5INFT and S5UTIL, respectively).

Megacap growth stocks including Qualcomm Inc. QCOM, Apple Inc. AAPL, Mastercard Inc. MA, and Microsoft Corp. MSFT all saw gains between 0.9% and 1.1%.

Tesla Inc. TSLA fell 2% after a Goldman Sachs analyst lowered the stock's price objective for the manufacturer of electric vehicles.

Following the telecom services company's massive expenditure plans on upgrading to higher-speed internet, Charter Communications Inc. CHTR fell 13.9% as several brokerages lowered their price estimates.

On the NYSE and the Nasdaq, advancing issues outpaced declining ones by a ratio of 1.35 to 1 and 1.12 to 1, respectively.

The Nasdaq posted 23 new highs and 83 new lows, compared to the S&P index's three new 52-week highs and none new lows.