The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 82.32 pts or 0.27% to close at 31,029.31, while the other major US equity indexes finished slightly in the red. The S&P 500 index edged 0.07% lower. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite retreated 0.03%. The small cap Russell 2000 dropped 1.12%.
Megacap tech stocks closed mixed on Wed. Gainers including Apple (AAPL US, +1.30%), Microsoft (MSFT US, +1.47%), Amazon (AMZN US, +1.42%) and Meta Platforms (META US, +2.03%), while Alphabet (GOOGL US, -0.27%) and Nvidia (NVDA US, -2.75%) fell.
Fixed income traders traders have now priced in a half-point Fed cut at some point in 2023 in anticipation of a recession eventually reversing the tightening cycle. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped 8.24 basis points (bps) to 3.0891%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasuries fell 7.11 bps to 3.0385%.
The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed down $1.72 at US$116.26/bbl and $1.98 at US$109.78/bbl respectively.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose 0.57% to 105.106.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Aug) contracts close flat at US$1,817.50/oz. September silver, which is the most actively traded silver futures, fell 10.1 cents, or 0.5%, to end at US$20.738/oz.
Bitcoin briefly fell below $20,000 on Wed. CNBC reports that embattled cryptocurrency exchange CoinFlex will probably not be able to let customers withdraw money again on Thur as it originally planned.
European equity markets finished lower on Wed. The UK FTSE lost 0.15%, France's CAC 40 fell 0.9%, while the German DAX retreated 1.73%.