U.S. stocks inched up in choppy trading Wednesday after weaker-than-expected private payrolls data deepened concerns about the Trump administration's trade policies pressuring the labor market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 54.5 points, or 0.13%, at the open to 42,574.13. The S&P 500 rose 8.6 points, or 0.14%, at the open to 5,978.94, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 36.0 points, or 0.19%, to 19,434.94 at the opening bell.
Shares of HPE rose nearly 6% in premarket trading as demand for the company's artificial-intelligence servers and hybrid cloud segment helped it beat estimates for second-quarter revenue and profit.
AI chip leader Nvidia rose 1%, extending gains from early this week. Other chipmakers including Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices also climbed.
A gauge of global stocks touched record highs despite uncertainty around U.S. trade policies.
Washington doubled its tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on Wednesday, which is also the target Trump had set for trading partners to make their best offers to avoid other punishing import levies from taking effect in early July.
The tariffs on imported steel and aluminum will jump to 50% from the 25% rate introduced in March.
Investor focus is squarely on tariff negotiations between Washington and its trading partners, with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping expected to speak sometime this week as tensions between the world's top two economies simmer.
"All eyes are on China given it is currently the biggest loser from Trump's new trade policy, and it looks like we're still some way off from a deal between the two countries," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.
May was the best month for the S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq since November 2023, thanks to a softening of Trump's harsh trade stance.
With fresh tariff announcements in place, the S&P 500 remains about 3% away from its record highs touched in February.
Barclays joined a slew of other brokerages in raising its year-end price target for the S&P 500, pointing to easing trade uncertainty and expectations of normalized earnings growth in 2026.
Data scheduled for Wednesday includes ADP National Employment data for May as well as S&P Global and ISM's services sector activity readings for May.
Ahead of a U.S. central bank meeting next week, monthly jobs data due on Friday will likely offer more signs on how trade uncertainty is affecting the U.S. economy.
Among other early movers, Wells Fargo shares rose 3.6% after the U.S. Federal Reserve removed a $1.95 trillion asset cap imposed in 2018 following years of missteps.
Shares of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike fell 6.9% after it forecast quarterly revenue below estimates.