oil up - gold plunges

Wall Street will also be keeping watch on crude-oil prices, which climbed 4.2 percent. Crude futures were last up 3 cents at 56.75 a barrel.

Gold prices, meanwhile, skidded $7.40 to $432.30 an ounce as the dollar found support ahead of Tuesday's Fed meeting.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to hike rates by a quarter percentage point, bringing its target federal funds rate up to 2.75 percent. It would mark the seventh consecutive FOMC meeting with a quarter-percentage point increase.

The dollar was up 1 percent against the euro at $1.3186 and up 0.7 percent against the Japanese yen at 105.41 yen.