WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Following the pullback seen over the past few sessions, stocks showed a modest move back to the upside during trading on Wednesday. The major averages gave back some ground after an early advance but still ended the day in positive territory.
The Dow climbed 119.65 points or 0.2 percent to 53,463.05, the Nasdaq rose 41.38 points or 0.2 percent to 26,331.09 and the S&P 500 edged up 16.22 points or 0.2 percent to 7,707.98.
The strength on Wall Street came amid a significant pullback by bond yields, with the thirty-year bond yield pulling back further off its highest levels in nearly two decades.
Yields moved sharply lower after the Treasury Department announced upscaled buyback operations for longer-term debt.
The Treasury said it is increasing the size of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities by at least double, effective September 9th.
'This increase in buyback operation sizes reflects Treasury's desire to provide greater liquidity support in longer-dated nominal sectors where there is consistent strong sponsorship from market participants,' the Treasury said in a statement.
Stocks gave back some ground in afternoon trading as the minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy revealed many officials believe an increase in interest rates would likely be necessary unless inflation declines.
The Fed said some participants also commented that financial conditions might not currently be sufficiently restrictive to facilitate a return of inflation to the 2 percent target.
At the same time, the minutes highlighted high uncertainty about the outlook for inflation due to in part to the recent re-escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
'[Many] participants remarked that a protracted conflict could prolong supply chain challenges and could put upward pressures on inflation,' the Fed said.
Fed officials voted 9-3 to leave interest rates unchanged at the July 28-29 meeting, with Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari and Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan preferring to raise rates by a quarter point.
The Fed said the participants who favored raising rates judged that doing so would likely help forestall the need for a steeper and potentially more costly sequence of tightening moves at a later stage.
Sector News
Gold stocks moved sharply higher along with the price of the precious metal, with the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index soaring by 9.3 percent to a three-month closing high.
Substantial strength was also visible among biotechnology stocks, as reflected by the 4.2 percent spike by the NYSE Arca Biotechnology Index.
Pharmaceutical, healthcare and housing stocks also saw considerable strength, while computer hardware, banking and semiconductor stocks showed significant moves to the downside.
Other Markets
In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly lower during trading on Wednesday. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index plunged by 3.2 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite Index tumbled by 2.4 percent.
Meanwhile, the major European markets ended the day little changed. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index crept up by 0.1 percent, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index both edged down by 0.1 percent.
In the bond market, treasuries have moved sharply higher in reaction to the Treasury Department's announcement. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, slumped 5.3 basis points to 4.653 percent.
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