By Krystal Hu and Shreyashi Sanyal
(Reuters) - The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended at a record high on Wednesday, while Nasdaq gave up its earlier gains and closed in red.
Energy and materials continued this week's momentum, leading gains among S&P 500 sectors. Defensive utilities and real estate led sectoral declines.
"Energy, financial, materials, industrials are all outperforming. They tend to be cyclically oriented sectors and tend to benefit during periods when the economies are reopening and expanding," said Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management.
The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index recovered from a sell-off on Tuesday. Megacap technology companies including Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc were down.
Strong economic data and earnings pushed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes to record high last week, but markets have wobbled amid concerns about rising inflation and potentially higher U.S. interest rates.
"Once you have markets hitting the highs we have seen recently, the one thing investors are worried about is rising inflation and what that means for profitability of companies," said Shawn Cruz, senior market strategist at TD Ameritrade.
Tech sell-off accelerated on Tuesday after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen suggested that interest rates might need to rise in an overheating economy.
She later clarified that a near-term interest rate hike was not something she was "predicting or recommending" on Tuesday evening.
The ADP (NASDAQ:ADP) National Employment Report showed U.S. private payrolls increased in April as companies rushed to boost production amid a surge in demand, powered by massive government aid and rising vaccinations against COVID-19.
A more comprehensive reading in the form of the Labor Department's non-farm payrolls data is due on Friday.
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 96.99 points, or 0.28%, to 34,230.02, the S&P 500 gained 2.97 points, or 0.07%, to 4,167.63 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 51.08 points, or 0.37%, to 13,582.43.
Peloton Interactive Inc hit a seven-month low on its announcement to recall its treadmills amid reports of multiple injuries and the death of a child in an accident.
Boeing (NYSE:BA) Co fell after U.S. air safety officials asked it to supply fresh analysis and documentation showing 737 MAX subsystems would not be affected by electrical grounding issues.
T-Mobile US (NASDAQ:TMUS) Inc jumped as it raised its full-year postpaid subscriber net additions forecast.
Uber Technologies Inc is set to report earnings after markets close on Wednesday.