Investing.com – U.S. stocks closed higher on Wednesday as a rise in tech offset a slump in financials which followed concerns over possible delays to President Donald Trump’s tax plan.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher at 23,563.98. The S&P 500 closed 0.14% higher while the Nasdaq Composite closed at 6789.12, up 0.32%.
With third-quarter earnings nearing an end, political events dominated trading as media reports suggested that the GOP Senate are proposing to make significant changes to the Republican tax plan and considering a one-year delay to corporate tax cuts.
That added to uncertainty concerning progress of the GOP tax plan after Republicans lost key elections in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday. Optimism on tax reform has been on the catalysts supporting the post-election rally in stocks.
Financials, mostly, banks continued to add to losses amid fears of a flattening yield curve –spreads narrow between short end and long end of the curve yield curve – which usually signals a recession.
Some analysts at JPMorgan were quick to downplay the slump in financials as precursor for selloff in equities, insisting that it will likely take a “material weakening” in real growth momentum and/or a break of “super-cap tech” to change the trajectory of the S&P500 in the near-term”.
In corporate earnings news, investors looked ahead to notable companies reporting earnings including Square and Twenty first Century Fox.
'Bulls and Bears' on Wall Street
The top Dow gainers for the session: Merck & Company Inc (NYSE:MRK) up 1.8%, Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT) up 1.5% and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) up 1.1%
JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM), down 1.1%, Caterpillar Inc (NYSE:CAT) down 1.1% and UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH) down 0.9%, were among the worst Dow performers of the session.