U.S. stocks had a strong start to the day but in the end close with little change on Wednesday. However, more than a dozen Nasdaq-100 companies posted a record closing; shares of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) were among the top performers of the day.
Here's how the stock market closed Wednesday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +0.03% or +0.98 points to 3,321.77
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): -0.03% or -9.56 points to 29,186.48
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +0.14% or +12.96 points to 9,383.77
In Major Stock News, shares of Tesla have continued their climbing during trading on Wednesday, with Wedbush analyst Dan Ives increasing his price target on the stock to $550 per share from $370, citing a strong demand from China could send the stock even higher. The electric car company crossed into the $100 billion market capitalization Wednesday. Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) shares dropped Wednesday after the streaming company missed expectations for subscriber growth in the U.S. and Canada. Capital One Financial (NYSE: COF) shares jumped up Wednesday after the bank reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue in the company's fourth quarter, thus making the bank the best performer in the S&P 500.
In Stock Sector News, sectors remained mixed as the market moves towards the end of this week of trading. The sectors that had positive performance gains include Information Technology +0.37%, Utilities +0.30%, Financials +0.27%, Health Care +0.12%, Consumer Staples +0.10 and Communication Services +0.06%. The rest that closed Wednesday with negative performance include Energy -0.89%, Real Estate -0.79%, Industrials -0.58%, Materials -0.39% and Consumer Discretionary -0.10%.
Lastly, in Commodity and Currency News, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) wrote in a note to clients Wednesday that a potential drop in oil demand from China due to the outbreak of the coronavirus could affect crude price by about $3 per barrel. As for Wednesday, West Texas Intermediate's (NYSE: USO) barrel prices dropped -0.50% and Brent Crude's (NYSE: BNO) fell -0.56%. Gold (NYSE: GLD) also continues to plummet, with the metal's price slipping -0.10%. Finally, the U.S. Dollar gained back some strength Wednesday, with the DXY Index increasing +0.03%.