WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - After moving to the upside at the start of trading, stocks have shown a lack of direction over the course of the session on Wednesday. The major averages have pulled back off their early highs and are now bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line.
Currently, the major averages are posting modest gains. The Nasdaq is up 95.70 points or 0.5 percent at 19,105.78, the S&P 500 is up 5.73 points or 0.1 percent at 5,892.28 and the Dow is up 40.69 points or 0.1 percent at 42,181.12.
The choppy trading on Wall Street comes as traders take a step back to assess the recent rally by the markets, which has seen the S&P 500 rebound strongly from its early April lows to turn positive for 2025.
While trade deals between the U.S. and China and the U.K. have helped ease concerns about President Donald Trump's trade policies, uncertainty about the eventual outcome continues to hang over the markets.
Traders may also be reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the release of a slew of U.S. economic data on Thursday.
Reports on producer prices, retail sales and industrial production are likely to attract attention along with a speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
While most of the major sectors are showing only modest moves on the day, gold stocks have moved sharply lower along with the price of the precious metal, dragging the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index down by 2.8 percent.
Considerable weakness is also visible among pharmaceutical stocks, as reflected by the 1.7 percent loss being posted by the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index.
Utilities, healthcare and oil producer stocks are also seeing notable weakness, while computer hardware stocks are showing another strong move to the upside.
In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher during trading on Wednesday. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index surged by 2.3 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite Index advanced by 0.9 percent.
Meanwhile, the major European markets have moved to the downside on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index is down by 0.2 percent, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index are both down by 0.5 percent.
In the bond market, treasuries have pulled back near the unchanged line after seeing initial strength. Currently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, is down by less than a basis point at 4.497 percent.
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