US stocks fall as investors brace for aggressive rate hike at this week's Fed meeting

• US stocks traded mostly lower on Monday as investors brace for a Fed meeting later this week.
• The Federal Reserve is expected to aggressively hike interest rates by at least 50 basis points.
• First-quarter earnings results continue to roll-in, and so far 77% of companies that have reported so far have beat profit estimates.

US stocks traded slightly lower on Monday as investors braced themselves for a more aggressive interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve later this week.

The Federal Open Market Committee meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, with an interest rate decision to be revealed at 2 p.m. on Wednesday. Market participants expect the Fed's Jerome Powell to announce an increase to the federal funds rate of 50 basis points, just two months after it made its first interest 25 basis point hike of the cycle in a bid to tame inflation.

Meanwhile, first-quarter earnings continue to roll in, with about 55% of S&P 500 companies having already reported results. Of those companies, 77% are beating profit estimates by a median of 8%. Additionally, 69% of those companies are beating revenue estimates by a median of 4%, according to Fundstrat.

Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. ET open on Monday:

• S&P 500: 4,120.37, down 0.28% 
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 32,922.95, down 0.16% (54.26 points)
• Nasdaq Composite: 12,281.99, down 0.35% 

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway held its annual shareholder meeting over the weekend in Omaha, Nebraska, and Insider's Theron Mohamed traveled to Omaha, Nebraska to document the event.

The $785 billion conglomerate revealed that it bought a net $41 billion into stocks last quarter, while slowing down the pace of its own share repurchases. Clearly, Buffett still sees opportunity in the stock market despite the recent volatility.

Berkshire purchased shares of Activision Blizzard after Microsoft announced its proposed acquisition in a merger arbitrage play, and it also increased its position in Apple, which by-far represents its largest stock portfolio holding. 

Despite losing more than $2 billion on its position, Cathie Wood's Ark Invest continues to buy shares of Teladoc after its near 50% earnings-driven implosion last week. The innovation-focused investor bought more than 600,000 shares of the tele-medicine company across its ETFs on Thursday and reiterated a bullish view on the company in an e-mail to investors.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell as much as much as 2.90% to $101.65 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, fell as much as 2.64% to $104.31.

Bitcoin rose 0.25% to $38,794. Ether prices fell 0.80% to $2,818.

Gold fell as much as 2.58% to $1,863.20 per ounce. The yield on the 10-year Treasury added three basis points to 2.96%.