Sinéad Carew and Shashwat Chauhan
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By Sinéad Carew and Shashwat Chauhan
(Reuters) -The S&P 500 closed slightly higher after flitting between gains and losses during Wednesday's lackluster session as investors waited for the next batch of economic data after a robust start to the week spurred by soft inflation data and a U.S.-China tariff truce.
Investors were watching out for more trade developments while President Donald Trump toured the Gulf states and secured $600 billion in commitments from Saudi Arabia. Some U.S. tech companies rallied after the administration announced artificial-intelligence-related deals in the Middle East on Tuesday.
"There's overhanging uncertainty about what world leaders, including President Trump are going to say about trade," said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York, noting that while earlier tariff policies were on pause there were no final deals in place.
"The recent announcements have been good and that caused a huge rally, but we still have uncertainty," he said.
U.S. stocks had rallied sharply on Monday and advanced again on Tuesday after the United States and China hit pause for 90 days on their fierce tariff dispute.
And it had also helped that data released on Tuesday showed U.S. consumer prices rebounded moderately in April.
Prior to this week, the U.S. announcement of a 90-day tariff pause on April 9 for countries other than China and a limited U.S.-UK trade agreement last week had also helped equities.
U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson said on Wednesday that while recent inflation data pointed to progress towards the Fed's 2% inflation goal, the outlook was now uncertain. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said the data did not necessarily reflect the impact of rising tariffs.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell is slated to speak on Thursday, and his comments will be closely watched for clues on how the central bank plans to proceed with monetary policy easing.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 89.37 points, or 0.21%, to 42,051.06 and its biggest losers were drug companies Merck & Co, down 4%, and Amgen, which finished down 3%.
The S&P 500 gained 6.03 points, or 0.10%, to 5,892.58. This added slightly to its year-to-date gain after closing higher for the year on Tuesday for the first time since February 28. The benchmark is still about 4% below its Feb. 19 record closing high, for its sixth straight day of gains.
The Nasdaq Composite gained 136.72 points, or 0.72%, to 19,146.81.
Eight of the S&P 500's 11 major industry sectors closed lower with Healthcare, down 2.31%, and materials, down 0.96%, the weakest of the bunch.
