Investing.com – Wall Street was mixed on Wednesday as oil prices rose and investors wait for meeting minutes from the Federal Reserve.
The S&P 500 was flat as of 10:10 AM ET (3:10 PM GMT) while the Dow composite fell 13 points or 0.06%. Tech heavy NASDAQ Composite inched forward three and a half points or 0.05%.
Oil prices rose, with Crude Oil WTI Futures rising 1.58% to $57.72 a barrel for the first time since July 2015 after a pipeline in Canada cut deliveries to the U.S. Oil was also boosted by news that Saudi Arabia was pushing for a nine-month cut of oil production from OPEC countries.
Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) was among the biggest gainers after the morning bell, rising 2.47% after its earnings results came in higher than expected. Pharmaceutical firm Teva Pharma Industries Ltd ADR (NYSE:TEVA) recovered 2.63% while General Electric (NYSE:GE) was up 1.46%.
Meanwhile HP Inc (NYSE:HPQ) slipped 5.70% and Salesforce.com Inc (NYSE:CRM) fell 1.94% after their quarterly results came in lower than expected. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE:HPE) decreased 7.51% after CEO Meg Whitman said she was leaving the company in February.
The latest meeting minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee are released at 2:00 PM ET (7:00 PM GMT). Investors will closely pore over the minutes for any indication as to whether or not the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in the coming months and what it thinks of the health of the U.S. economy.
In Europe markets were mixed. In Germany the DAX fell 44 points or 0.33% amid political uncertainty while France’s CAC 40 increased 23 points or 0.43% and in London the FTSE 100 inched forward 34 points or 0.46%. Spain’s IBEX 35 surged 86 points or 0.87%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 was up 10 points or 0.46%.
In commodities, gold futures gained 0.45% to $1,287.41 a troy ounce. The U.S dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.34% to 93.57.