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Apple falls after brokerage downgrade

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3M up after fourth-quarter profit beat

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Dow at more than one-month high, S&P 500 at over three-week high

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Indexes up: Dow 0.59%, S&P 500 0.45%, Nasdaq 0.07%

(Updates after markets open)

By Johann M Cherian and Sukriti Gupta

Jan 21 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes edged up on Tuesday, as investors assessed President Donald Trump's executive orders after taking office, while awaiting his first move on trade policy.

Trump did not lay out any concrete plans on the universal tariffs and additional surcharges on close trade partners as previously promised, but said he was thinking about imposing duties on Canadian and Mexican goods as early as Feb. 1.

While investors remain cautious about Trump's tariff policies, which could spark a global trade war and fresh inflation pressures, brokerage Goldman Sachs lowered its forecast for a universal tariff this year to 25% from about 40% seen in December.

At 09:57 a.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 258.04 points, or 0.59%, to 43,745.87, the S&P 500 gained 26.73 points, or 0.45%, to 6,023.39 and the Nasdaq Composite

gained 13.90 points, or 0.07%, to 19,644.10.

The domestically focused small-cap Russell 2000 index rose 1% to touch a one-month high.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors rose, with real estate

leading the gains with a 1.4% increase.

Apple slid 3.7% after brokerage Jefferies cut its rating on the iPhone maker to 'underperform'.

Automakers General Motors and Ford , which are most sensitive to tariffs due to their vast supply chains, edged up 1.6% and 0.8%, respectively, while Elon Musk-led Tesla

dropped 3.1%.

"It's impossible to know exactly what the Trump administration will do...in the past, tariff rhetoric turned into trade deals that turned into negotiating tactic and it was never universally applied. So, I think the market right now is taking a wait-and-see attitude towards that," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth.

During the first year of Trump's first administration, the S&P 500 rose 19.4%, while the benchmark index rose nearly 68% through his first term, but saw bouts of volatility, stemming in part from a trade war Trump fought with China.

Last week, the S&P 500 and Dow registered their biggest weekly percentage gains since early November, helped by strong bank earnings and signs that underlying inflation was cooling.

However, inflation is still above the Federal Reserve's 2% target, and fuelling worries that Trump's policies could delay the central bank's pace of monetary policy easing.

Economists see the Fed leaving borrowing costs unchanged when it meets next week and traders see the first interest rate cut coming in July, according to data compiled by LSEG.

3M rose 4.5% after posting upbeat fourth-quarter profits. Charles Schwab rose 7% after the brokerage firm's profit rose 44% in the fourth quarter.

Walgreens fell 12.3% after the Justice Department accused the pharmacy operator of filling unlawful prescriptions for addictive painkillers and other drugs.

Moderna rose 9.3% after securing $590 million from the U.S. to hasten development of its bird flu vaccine.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 4.14-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 2.15-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 32 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 78 new highs and 33 new lows.

(Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

((johann.mcherian@thomsonreuters.com;))