Fear Among US Investors Is Increasing, Here's Why

The CNN Money Fear and Greed index showed further increase in the overall fear level in the US equity markets, with the index remaining in the "fear" zone on Wednesday.

U.S. stocks settled lower on Tuesday as investors assessed the recent earnings reports from several companies.

Both Alphabet Inc. GOOGL and Microsoft Corporation MSFT reported downbeat earnings results for their latest quarter after the closing bell on Tuesday. However, shares of both the companies moved higher following the earnings release.

Meta Platforms, Inc. META and Ford Motor Company F are all set to release earnings after the closing bell today.

Market sentiment was also negatively impacted by the release of the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index, which fell to 95.7 in July from a revised reading of 98.4 in the previous month. New home sales also fell 8.1% from a month ago to an annual rate of 590,000 in June.

Investors are also awaiting the policy decision from the Federal Reserve today, with markets expecting a 75 bps rate hike from the central bank.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.87% to close at 11,562.57 on Tuesday. The Dow Jones and S&P 500, meanwhile, lost 0.71% and 1.15%, respectively in the previous session.

At a current reading of 35.0, the index remained in the "fear" zone on Wednesday, following a previous reading of 38.0.