In the late trading session on Wednesday, the leading US indices edged higher, thus paring some losses incurred the day before. On Tuesday, stock indices fell by 1.6%-2.8% amid an impressive spike in US government bond yields.
More rapid and confident growth of stock indicators on Wednesday was limited by the comments of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell given during his speech at a forum organized by the European Central Bank. Another limiting factor was the recent gloomy statistics on consumer confidence.
Thus, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index rose by 0.26% to 34,390, while the S&P 500 index added 16%, hitting 4,359. At the same time, the NASDAQ Composite dropped by 0.24% to 14,512.
All three leading stock indices risk closing the outgoing month with losses. This decline in the S&P 500 market indicator would end seven consecutive months of gains.
However, this is far from the only cause for concern among investors. Today, market participants are focused on the forthcoming phase-out of purchases of bond purchases by the US Federal Reserve and high inflation rates. Another important and unresolved issue is disagreements among US Congress members over the public debt ceiling and the continued funding of the federal government.
Shares of US aerospace giant Boeing Co gained in value by 3.2% amid successful test flights of the 737 MAX model by China's aviation regulator.
Shares of Dollar Tree Inc, a discount retail store operator, soared by 16.5% immediately after its Board approved an increase in buybacks by $1.05 billion to $2.5 billion.
The market value of US pharmaceutical maker Eli Lilly & Co rose by 4.0% after Citigroup experts upgraded the stock rating from Neutral to Buy.
Lucid Group Inc's stock added more than 7%. This steep growth can be attributed to the fact that the electric-vehicle maker showed off the first cars rolling off its production line and announced that deliveries to customers would begin at the end of October.
Tesla's stock advanced by 0.5% in anticipation of the company's third-quarter sales report. According to preliminary forecasts, the report will be positive despite the global shortage of chips.
Shares of US semiconductor maker Micron Technology sank by 2%, although its fourth-quarter net income more than doubled.
Shares of Apple Inc rose by 0.7%, Microsoft Corp added 0.2%, and IBM Corp jumped by 1.2%.