US equities gained in a volatile session on Wed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 47.79 pts, or 0.15%, to close at 31,874.84. The broader S&P 500 index rose 0.59%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.58%. The small cap Russell 2000 gained 1.59%.
Most megacap tech stocks posted strong gains on Wed, including Microsoft (MSFT US, +1.06%), Amazon (AMZN US, +3.86%), Alphabet (GOOGL US, +0.08%), NVidia (NVDA US, +4.80%), and Meta Platforms (META US, +4.16%). Apple (AAPL US, +1.35%).
Semiconductor manufacturers outperformed after the Senate pushed forward a US$50b bill to bolster chip manufacturing in the US.
Tesla (TSLA US, +0.8%) shares edged up 1.45% in after-hours trade on Wed. The electric-vehicle maker 2Q earnings beat Wall Street estimates.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was mostly unchanged at 3.0265%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasuries fell 1.02 basis point (bps) to 3.2272%.
The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed down 43 cents at US$106.92/bbl and $1.96 at US$102.26/bbl respectively.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose 0.37% to 107.076.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Aug) contracts settled down $10.50, or 0.6%, at US$1,700.20/oz. September silver, which is the most actively traded silver futures, fell 4.5 cents, or 0.2%, to end at US$18.668/oz.
European equity markets finished lower on Wed. The UK FTSE lost 0.44%, France's CAC 40 fell 0.27%, while the German DAX retreated 0.2%. The euro fell 0.46% on Wed fell as Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi appears to have failed in his bid to revive his coalition government.