WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - After moving to the upside at the start of trading on Wednesday, stocks showed a lack of direction over the course of the session - bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before finishing mixed.
The Dow slumped 89.37 points or 0.21 percent to finish at 42,051.06, while the NASDAQ rallied 136.72 points or 0.72 percent to close at 19,146.81 and the S&P 500 rose 6.03 points or 0.10 percent to end at 5,892.58.
The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders took 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 also were reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the release of a slew of U.S. economic data on Thursday, including producer prices, retail sales and industrial production. A speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is also likely to attract attention.
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. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index fell 0.21 percent, while Germany's DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index both slipped 0.47 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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