REFILE-GLOBAL MARKETS-World shares edge higher, US yields drop ahead of Fed

By Chibuike Oguh and Sara Rossi

NEW YORK/LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - An index of world equity markets edged higher in choppy trading after hitting a record high on Tuesday ahead of the widely expected start of the Federal Reserve's interest rate cutting cycle, while U.S. Treasury yields and the dollar fell.

MSCI's all-country index .MIWD00000PUS was a shade higher by 0.04% after rising as far as 978.74, a record high. Wall Street stocks erased earlier session gains and finished lower, with utilities and real estate making the most losses while energy and consumer discretionary shares led the gains.

The Dow Industrial Average .DJI fell 0.27% to 45,757.90, the S&P 500 .SPX fell 0.13% to 6,606.76 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC fell 0.07% to 22,333.96.

The pan-European STOXX 600 .STOXX dropped 1.14%, led by declines in financials, real estate and industrials stocks.

"Today is more of a sideways move than anything else," said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide. "It felt like yesterday where we had a little bit of a surge and today a little bit of a pullback. But the reality is this is all just waiting to see what happens tomorrow afternoon."

The Fed is expected to cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to the 4.00%-4.25% range at the end of its monetary policy meeting on Wednesday.

Stephen Miran was sworn into his Fed position on Tuesday morning, after the U.S. Senate narrowly confirmed him to the central bank's Board of Governors ahead of its policy meeting. A U.S. appeals court separately declined to let President Donald Trump fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes US10YT=RR fell 0.6 points to 4.028%. The 2-year note US2YT=RR yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, fell 2.6 basis points to 3.51%.

"You've had a really incredible run in the past couple of weeks: five out of the last six weeks positive ... record highs pretty much across the board. To me this is just a pause and a sideways, wait-and-see movement rather than a significant drop," Hackett said.

Bets on Fed cuts have in turn kept pressure on the dollar, which on Tuesday fell to its lowest since July 4 against a basket of currencies =USD.

The dollar weakened 0.64% against the Japanese yen JPY=EBS to 146.45 and fell 1.04% to 0.786 against the Swiss franc CHF=EBS.

The euro EUR=EBS traded at its highest since September 2021 against the dollar. It was last up 0.87% at $1.1862. Sterling GBP=D3 climbed to its highest in more than two months at $1.365.

The dollar index =USD fell 0.714% to 96.653, its lowest level since July 1.

Gold rose as the dollar weakened. Spot gold XAU= rose 0.36% to $3,692.10 an ounce.

Oil prices rose as markets weighed a potential disruption of supplies from Russia due to Ukrainian drone attacks on its ports and refineries.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose 1.5% to settle at $68.47 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 settled at $64.52, up 1.9%.