India, Aug. 13 -- After initially extending the rally seen during Tuesday's session, stocks gave back ground over the course of the trading day on Wednesday but managed to close mostly higher. Despite pulling back well off their highs of the session, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 still reached new record closing highs.
The Nasdaq inched up 31.24 points or 0.1 percent to 21,713.14 and the S&P 500 rose 20.82 points or 0.3 percent to 6,466.58, while the narrower Dow posted a more significant gain, jumping 463.66 points or 1.0 percent to 44,922.27.
The stronger gain by the blue chip index came amid notable gains by Dow components UnitedHealth (UNH), Nike (NKE), Sherwin-Williams (SHW) and Merck (MRK).
The early strength on Wall Street came as st...