S&P 500 closes slightly higher, investors focus on trade, wait for data

By Sinéad Carew and Shashwat Chauhan

May 14 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 closed slightly higher after flitting between gains and losses during Wednesday's session as investors waited for the next batch of economic data after a robust start to the week spurred by soft inflation data and a U.S.-China tariff truce.

Investors were watching out for more trade developments while President Donald Trump toured the Gulf states and secured $600 billion in commitments from Saudi Arabia. Some U.S. tech companies rallied after the administration announced artificial-intelligence-related deals in the Middle East on Tuesday.

"There's overhanging uncertainty about what world leaders, including President Trump are going to say about trade," said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York, noting that while earlier tariff policies were on pause there were no final deals in place.

"The recent announcements have been good and that caused a huge rally, but we still have uncertainty," he said.

U.S. stocks had gained ground sharply on Monday and advanced again on Tuesday after the United States and China hit pause for 90 days on their fierce tariff dispute.

And it had also helped that data released on Tuesday showed U.S. consumer prices rebounded moderately in April.

Prior to this week, the U.S. announcement of a 90-day tariff pause on April 9 for countries other than China and a limited U.S.-UK trade agreement last week had also helped equities.

U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson said on Wednesday that while recent inflation data pointed to progress towards the Fed's 2% inflation goal, the outlook was now uncertain. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said the data did not necessarily reflect the impact of rising tariffs.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 5.56 points, or 0.09%, to end at 5,892.11 points, while the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC gained 132.91 points, or 0.70%, to 19,142.99. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 95.43 points, or 0.23%, to 42,045.00.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is slated to speak on Thursday, and his comments will be closely watched for clues on how the central bank plans to proceed with monetary policy easing.

With Wednesday being a relatively quiet day for economic data, Andrew Graham, managing partner and founder of Jackson Square Capital, said investors were holding steady before April's Producer Price Index (PPI) and retail sales readings due on Thursday morning.

"People are looking for any sort of evidence that the tariff situation has leaked into the real economy," said Graham, but with 90-day pauses to tariff policies in place, he said he is less concerned about April's data readings.

"You're at a good news is good, but bad news gets a pass phase," he said.

Megacap and growth stocks rose, with Nvidia NVDA.O among the top index boosts. Chip designer Advanced Micro Devices AMD.O shares rose after it approved a $6 billion share buyback program.

Boeing BA.N shares rose after state carrier Qatar Airways signed a deal to purchase jets from the U.S. planemaker during Trump's visit to Doha.

In individual stocks, American Eagle Outfitters AEO.N shares lost ground after the apparel company withdrew its annual forecasts, citing tariff-fueled economic uncertainty.