U.S. stock indexes dipped on Wednesday after edging briefly higher in the wake of the publication of the minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting, which investors had been waiting on for clues on the central bank's rate policy and inflation fight.

A deteriorating inflation situation and concern about lost faith in the Federal Reserve's power to make it better prompted U.S. central bank officials to rally around an outsized interest rate increase and a firm restatement of its intent to get prices under control, minutes of the June 14-15 policy meeting showed.

The 0.75 percentage-point rate increase which came out of the meeting was the first of that size since 1994. According to the minutes, participants judged that an increase of 50 or 75 basis points would likely be appropriate at the policy meeting later this month.

After a brutal selloff in global equity markets in the first half of the year, nervous investors are keeping a close watch on central bank actions as they try to assess the impact of aggressive rate hikes on global growth.

By 2:17 p.m. EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 90.03 points, or 0.29%, to 30,877.79, the S&P 500 lost 5.68 points, or 0.15%, to 3,825.71 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 20.35 points, or 0.18%, to 11,301.88.