Stocks drop ahead of central bank meetings

US and European stock futures, as well as Asian stocks, tumbled on Tuesday as traders and investors look to raise interest rates this week at the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.

Benchmarks for China, Japan, India, South Korea, and Australia have slipped. Wall Street trading took the Nasdaq 100 to its lowest since December 22 as Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. put pressure on the market.

The sale of Adani Group shares continued as the market value of the 10 group companies fell by $75 billion after U.S. company Hindenburg Research filed fraud allegations last week. Shares of the main company Adani Enterprises Ltd. added about 2% as a subsequent $2.5 billion sale of the company’s shares came to an end. Abu Dhabi International Holding Company said it would invest about $400 million in the sale.

Shares of Samsung Electronics Co. lost more than 3.5%, which affected the Kospi index against the backdrop of low demand for semiconductors and lower sales of smartphones and memory chips.

In Hong Kong, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is down 10% this week.

While the index of world stocks remained on course for gains of about 6% in January.

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Traders and investors began to worry ahead of central bank decisions and data releases later in the week, as higher-than-expected PMI data in China failed to nudge stocks.

The dollar index remained almost unchanged after the dollar advanced against all of its Group of 10 peers on Monday. The Australian dollar slipped due to the fact that the data on retail sales in the country is not in line with estimates.

The yield on 10-year Treasuries remained virtually unchanged at 3.54%. The yield on 10-year Japanese bonds added 1.5 basis points to 0.49%.

Traders and investors are awaiting the Fed’s decision on Wednesday, where the US central bank is likely to raise rates by a quarter of a percentage point.

Oil continued to fall as traders wait for news about demand in China, the Fed’s decision, and the latest OPEC+ forecasts.