Wall Street edges up as yields stay tame

Stocks on Wall Street made modest gains Wednesday as inflation fears eased. Recent comments from Federal Reserve officials have helped deflate concerns about runaway inflation and kept bond yields in check.

With benchmark yields staying below 1.6%, rate-sensitive growth stocks Alphabet and Tesla led the S&P higher.

Piper Sandler Chief Market Technician Craig Johnson:

"I think the Fed has done a very good job historically predicting inflation, and you've had Fed's (Richard) Clarida out there, several of the presidents out there talking about this is all transitory, so a lot of investors are sort of, you know, drinking the Kool Aid at this point in time that all these inflationary fears are transitory."

The Dow closed flat. The S&P inched up two-tenths percent. And the Nasdaq rose six-tenth percent.

Among the top gainers on the Nasdaq and S&P: Amazon. The online retailer said it's paying more than $8 billion to buy MGM. Amazon gets a huge film and TV show library that'll ramp up competition with the likes of Netflix and Disney+.

A report saying that Amazon is considering launching brick-and-mortar pharmacies in the U.S. dragged down shares of drug retailers Walgreens, CVS Health and Rite Aid.

Investors drove shares of Ford up more than 8%. The No. 2 U.S. automaker unveiled plans to boost spending on electrifying its vehicles by more than a third.