U.S. shares higher at close of trade; Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.30%

Investing.com – U.S. equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the , and sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in NYSE, the gained 0.30%, while the index climbed 0.41%, and the index added 0.47%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the were Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:), which rose 1.51% or 4.35 points to trade at 293.11 at the close. Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:) added 1.33% or 1.86 points to end at 141.19 and Salesforce.com Inc (NYSE:) was up 1.29% or 3.50 points to 275.27 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Dow Inc (NYSE:), which lost 3.28% or 1.94 points to trade at 57.16 in late trade. Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ:) declined 1.37% or 0.75 points to end at 53.94 and Merck & Company Inc (NYSE:) shed 1.15% or 0.94 points to 80.66.

The top performers on the S&P 500 were Intercontinental Exchange Inc (NYSE:) which rose 3.84% to 122.62, CSX Corporation (NASDAQ:) which was up 3.53% to settle at 32.54 and Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:) which gained 3.21% to close at 174.71.

The worst performers were Electronic Arts Inc (NASDAQ:) which was down 6.95% to 134.07 in late trade, Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:) which lost 5.95% to settle at 16.12 and Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:) which was down 5.33% to 80.61 at the close.

The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Voyager Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:) which rose 56.68% to 3.870, Grom Social Enterprises Inc (NASDAQ:) which was up 48.35% to settle at 4.940 and Nextplay Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:) which gained 28.24% to close at 1.680.

The worst performers were DatChat Inc (NASDAQ:) which was down 17.08% to 7.38 in late trade, ACON S2 Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ:) which lost 16.00% to settle at 7.510 and Erasca Inc (NASDAQ:) which was down 16.04% to 19.10 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1777 to 1398 and 144 ended unchanged; on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, 2192 fell and 1365 advanced, while 152 ended unchanged on the New York Stock Exchange.

The , which measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 options, was down 1.41% to 21.00.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.22% or 3.85 to $1764.75 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in November fell 2.34% or 1.85 to hit $77.08 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract fell 2.10% or 1.73 to trade at $80.83 a barrel.

EUR/USD was down 0.32% to 1.1559, while USD/JPY fell 0.04% to 111.41.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.46% at 94.213.