The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose three-tenths of a percent. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite gained a bit more than one-tenth of a percent.

Those modest gains nonetheless meant the Dow notched a new record closing high. The S&P 500 hovered less than 1% below a record closing high reached nearly one year ago.

All three indexes remain on course for monthly, quarterly, and annual gains. But all bets could be off come January 1st.

Michael Green is the chief strategist and portfolio manager for Simplify Asset Management. He told Reuters the recent rally in equities, and its current highs, may simply reflect investors wanting to put off profit-taking to the new year.

"My gut tells me that we're going to see positions reduced in many of the winners from 2023. So naturally that should put some pressure on the Nasdaq. [FLASH] It really feels like January, February, is setting up for some profit-taking, and the potential for at least some reversal in the move that we've seen from that October low.

Among the biggest movers on Wednesday, shares of Bit Digital jumped 18.6% following the bitcoin miner's announcement that it plans to double its mining operations.

Coherus BioSciences rose 23.6% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its drug delivery device for its infection-fighting treatment.

And First Wave BioPharma shares surged almost fifty percent after the drug developer agreed to sell its inflammatory bowel disease drug to an undisclosed company.