NEW YORK: Resurgent technology shares boosted Wall Street stocks Wednesday despite the sagging fortunes of petroleum producers and electric-car company Tesla.
Big tech names, including Amazon, Google parent Alphabet and Microsoft, all climbed more than one percent as investors again stepped in to take advantage of intermittent weakness in the sector.
But oil producers, including ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, all tumbled at least 1.5 percent as oil prices fell sharply on worries that Russia won't deepen output cuts to boost prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished virtually flat at 21,477.97.
The broad-based S&P 500 added 0.2 percent at 2,432.54, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 0.7 percent to 6,150.86.
Meeting minutes released by the Federal Reserve showed disagreement among policy makers on the timing of interest rate hikes into next year and the timeframe for winding down the Fed's multi-trillion-dollar investment holdings.
Analysts are looking ahead to Friday's release of the June employment report, expected to show an addition of 173,000 jobs.
Tesla slumped 7.2 percent after Goldman Sachs slashed its price target on the carmaker due to expectations for lower car deliveries.
Another auto stock, car parts and tools supplier, O'Reilly Automotive, plummeted 18.9 percent after warning that second-quarter comparable stores growth was 1.7 percent, below the three to five percent growth previously projected, due to weak consumer demand.
Autozone, which also sells car parts and supplies, dropped 9.6 percent.
Payment processing company Vantiv fell 2.4 percent after announcing plans to buy British rival Worldpay for about $11 billion.
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