Wednesday Market Wrap: Major Averages Record Small Gains

The major U.S. equity averages spent most of the day in negative territory before a late-day rally pushed the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq all into the green by the close. After a sell-off on Tuesday, stocks remain just below all-time high levels. The release of minutes from the Fed's July policy meeting showed that the central bank is committed to keeping its options open and no consensus has been reached about the timing of another rate increase. "Members judged it appropriate to continue to leave their policy options open and maintain the flexibility to adjust the stance of policy based on incoming information," the minutes said. At the earliest, the next bump up in short-term rates could come in September, but that is far from set in stone. Big gainers on the session included

, which surged more than 15 percent on the back of a strong earnings report and

, which jumped 13 percent on the session. Losers included

, which fell 15 percent after a disappointing earnings report, and

.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 22 points, or 0.12 percent, to close at 18,574. The S&P 500 climbed 4 points, or 0.19 percent, to finish at 2,182. The Nasdaq rose a little less than 2 points, or 0.03 percent, to 5,229.

The commodity complex was lower on Wednesday with the Bloomberg Commodity Index added 0.17 percent. NYMEX crude oil futures rose 0.67 percent to $46.89 while Brent contracts climbed 1.20 percent to $49.82. Natural gas futures were unchanged at $2.62. Precious metals were lower mid-week. COMEX gold futures fell 0.25 percent to $1,353.50. The

rose 0.03 percent to close the equity session at $128.51. Silver contracts fell 0.88 percent to $19.70 on the day. The

lost 0.74 percent to finish at $18.68. In the grains complex, corn and wheat were both higher on the session. Corn contracts added 0.74 percent to $3.3975 and wheat futures were up 0.80 percent to $4.4300.

Treasury prices were moderately higher on Wednesday. At the close of equities, the

had added 0.60 percent to $139.22. Treasury yields were as follows on Wednesday afternoon: The yield on the 2-Year Note was 0.74 percent. The 5-Year Note was yielding 1.15 percent. The 10-Year Note was last yielding 1.56 percent while the 30-Year Bond yield was 2.27 percent.

The U.S. Dollar was moderately higher on Wednesday. The

, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, traded up 0.08 percent to $24.51. The closely watched EUR/USD pair rose 0.10 percent to 1.1290 euros.

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) gave back some of its gains from Tuesday. After spiking in morning trade, the VIX fell throughout the afternoon and finished down 3.56 percent to 12.19. Volume was a little higher than it has been in recent days, but still well below average. Around 67 million

shares traded hands versus a 3-month daily average of just over 92 million shares. Trading in the

, which tracks the Nasdaq 100, was also below average with just 15 million shares being traded compared to a 3-month daily average just under 23 million.