The battered Dow closed higher but well off its best levels Tuesday, staging a rebound from a two-day drop of more than 1,000 points sparked by worries about the health of the global economy.

Wall Street's focus now shifts to Wednesday's decision on interest rates from the Federal Reserve, which investors hope will signal a pause in its rate hike plans.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 83 points, or 0.4 percent, to 23,676, after climbing 334 points earlier in the session. Wall Street, which is looking for signs of market stability, hopes the gains can hold and ignite a year-end rally.

Stocks have suffered a steep slide in December, with the Dow tumbling 7.3 percent, a dive that has left it down 4.2 percent for the year and 11.8 percent below its Oct. 3 all-time high.

The broader market is off to its worst start to December since the Great Depression. The broad Standard & Poor's 500 is down 7.8 percent for the month. If December were to end today, it would be the worst month for the S&P 500 since May 2010, according to Bespoke Investment Group. Perhaps more worrisome is the fact the last time the S&P 500 had a weaker month-to-date December performance through the close on Dec.18 was in 1931.

"For the month of December, declines of this magnitude are practically unheard of," Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke, told clients in a note before the opening bell.

The stock market has been weighed down by a long list of worries ranging from fears that the economy will suffer if the Fed continues to hike interest rates too aggressively to uncertainty about the outlook for global growth and outcome of the trade dispute between the U.S. and China.

Investors are hoping that the Fed, led by chairman Jerome Powell, will refrain from raising interest rates for a fourth time this year when it breaks from its two-day meeting Wednesday. Wall Street is also looking for the nation's central bank to signal that rate hikes for 2019 are on pause.

Right now, there's still 69.8 percent odds that the Fed will hike rates Wednesday to a range of 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent, according to futures markets. Traders, however, now are placing less than a one in three chance (28.3 percent) that there will be another rate hike in 2019 and only an 8 percent chance of a second hike next year, according to CME Group.

President Donald Trump also weighed in by tweeting early Tuesday, "I hope the people over at the Fed will read today’s Wall Street Journal Editorial before they make yet another mistake," he said in the tweet. "Also, don’t let the market become any more illiquid than it already is. Stop with the 50 B’s. Feel the market, don’t just go by meaningless numbers. Good luck!"

"Can the Fed deliver a festive surge?" is how Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at currency trading firm Oanda, framed the closely watched Fed meeting.

Investors agree with the president. More than six of 10 investors (61 percent) say the Fed should "stop raising rates" in the latest Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index, up from 46 percent six months ago. Sixteen percent responding to the latest fourth-quarter survey said they are "very concerned" about the market's recent bout of volatility.

The stock market's steep descent has been broad-based. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite are all in correction territory, or down more than 10 percent from their highs. And the Russell 2000, a small-company stock index, is down nearly 21 percent from its August peak and in a bear market.

"There is a lot of pessimism in the markets right now," Erlam says.

Last week, net outflows to stock funds and exchange-traded funds hit a record high of $34.72 billion, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, a sign that jittery retail investors were reducing their stock holdings.

Stocks have been unable to bounce late in the year, even though valuations have dropped to their lowest level in two years.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dow Jones industrial average ends higher as investors wait for Fed rate announcement