After opening in the green, Wall Street was on a more mixed note at midday on Wednesday, as the market searched for fresh impetus after last week's record highs.

At around 12:00 p.m. (New York time), the Dow Jones was up 0.6% at 39,501 points, aided by Merck's sharp rise, but the Nasdaq Composite was still down 0.1% at 16,295.8 points.

Since the start of the week, US stock markets have been moving without much direction, although the Dow and S&P today managed to put an end to a series of three straight declines.

Although the US stock markets set new records last week, the trend has since slowed amid growing concerns about the high valuation levels of equities.

Trading has been mostly limited since Monday, in anticipation of the release of what promises to be the highlight of the week, the PCE price index on Friday", explains one trader.

Investors seem to be waiting for further signs of a deceleration in inflation, in order to continue the upward movement that has been underway since the autumn.

On the stock front, Merck hit new all-time highs and largely supported the Dow's advance, with a gain of almost 4% following the US FDA's green light for the prescription of its Winrevair for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension.

The session was also marked by profit-taking on Nvidia, which retreated by 3% as the end of the first quarter approached, which had enabled it to soar by 93% so far.

Netflix, which has climbed by 29% this year, also suffered some sell-offs as Wedbush analysts decided to remove the stock from their list of best investment ideas.

On the NYMEX, oil prices gave up ground following the announcement of a slight weekly rise in crude oil inventories. The May contract on WTI gave up 0.2% to under $81.5.

On the bond market, the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds fell back below 4.20%, moving further away from the nearly four-month peak of over 4.34% recorded last week.

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