As investors anticipated the Federal Reserve’s 15th straight increase in interest rates, stocks in America slid in the second-slowest trading this year on the New York Stock Exchange.

Economists expect the Fed to conclude a two-day policy meeting today by raising its target rate to 4.75%. Some investors said the central bank may lift borrowing costs too far before ending the streak.

“This is probably as good as it’s going to get” for the stock market any time soon, said Edgar Peters, chief investment officer at PanAgora Asset Management in Boston, which manages $18 billion. “I don’t believe the Fed is actually close to ending the rate hikes.”

Utilities, among the shares most sensitive to changes in rates, dropped as government bond yields rose. Medical device makers fell after Stryker Corporation and Zimmer Holdings were downgraded at JPMorgan Chase & Company.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 1.34, or 0.1%, to 1,301.61. The Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated 29.86, or 0.3%, to 11,250.11. Both reached the highest since May 2001 this month. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 2.76, or 0.1%, to 2315.58.

Some $1.37 billion changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, 17% below the three-month average. Nine stocks fell for every seven that rose on the Big Board.

Stocks have advanced this year on optimism that the economy and earnings will expand without fueling inflation. The S&P 500, up 4.3%, is headed for the biggest first-quarter gain in seven years.

“We’ve had such a quick run here in the first quarter, to see the market trade sideways or taper off a little bit wouldn’t be that unusual,” said Bart Barnett, head of equity trading at Memphis, Tenn.-based Morgan Keegan & Company.

Policy-makers will lift the benchmark U.S. lending rate today by a quarter point to 4.75%, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is presiding over his first Fed Open Market Committee meeting since succeeding Alan Greenspan in February.