S&P 500 edges higher, holds gains after Fed minutes By Reuters

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The rose slightly on Wednesday and held its gains after the Federal Reserve released the minutes from its last meeting, which showed officials divided on economic signals.

According to the minutes of the U.S. central bank’s June policy meeting, Fed officials that substantial further progress on the economic recovery “was generally seen as not having yet been met,” though participants expected progress to continue.

“I read this as effectively a dovish set of notes simply because they don’t feel as a group that they have enough certainty around the situation to make any changes at all,” said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial Network in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Comments from the Fed following the meeting last month were viewed as more hawkish.

Wall Street has been concerned about inflation, with investors moving between economy-linked value stocks and growth names in the past few sessions.

The rose 38.68 points, or 0.11%, to 34,616.05, the S&P 500 gained 9.69 points, or 0.22%, to 4,353.23 and the dropped 16.49 points, or 0.11%, to 14,647.15.

(Graphic: nasdaq, spx outperform, dow lags, https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/oakvedjmbpr/MicrosoftTeams-image%20(14).png)

China’s market regulator said it has fined a number of internet companies including Didi Global, Tencent and Alibaba (NYSE:) for failing to report earlier merger and acquisition deals for approval.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.19-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.30-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 70 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 80 new highs and 107 new lows.

(This story corrects paragraph 4 to say “Comments from the Fed following the meeting last month were viewed as more hawkish” instead of “the minutes released last month”)