Wall Street drifts to a mixed close, weighed down by Big Tech

Wall Street capped a choppy day of trading with a mixed finish Wednesday as a lateafternoon pullback among several Big Tech companies offset gains elsewhere in the market.

The S&P 500 closed 0.1% lower after having been up by 0.7% earlier in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had been up 0.5% before finishing with a gain of just 0.1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.

The S&P 500 lost 4.31 points to 4,550.58. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 13.44 to 35,430.42. The Nasdaq fell 23.27 to 14,258.49. The Russell 2000 gained 11 (0.6%) to 1,803.81.

Facebook parent company Meta fell 2%, Google’s parent company Alphabet gave up 1.6% and Microsoft dropped 1%.

Still, gainers outnumbered decliners by a nearly 2-to-1 margin on the New York Stock Exchange.

Automakers were among the bright spots. General Motors surged 9.4% after the company announced a big stock buyback, raised its dividend and told investors it won’t have any trouble absorbing the costs of its new labor contract. The stock is still down 6.1% for the year, while the S&P 500 is up more than 18%.

GM and its rivals agreed to new contracts with the United Auto Workers and Canadian auto workers in late October following strikes that lasted more than a month.

Ford rose 2.1% and

Jeep maker Stellantis rose 5.3%.

Treasury yields fell, taking more pressure off of stocks.

Wall Street also received another encouraging economic update Wednesday. The U.S. economy grew at a brisk 5.2% annual pace from July through September, the government reported, an upgrade from its previous estimate of 4.9%.

Consumer spending, the lifeblood of the economy, rose at a 3.6% annual rate from July through September. That’s still healthy, but a downgrade from the previous estimate of 4%.

The report follows an encouraging survey on consumer confidence released Tuesday.