Wall St scales higher as tech stocks gain; Fed's rate decision awaited

Wall Street indexes advanced on Wednesday as technology stocks gained and traders took positions, overlooking concerns of benign inflation ahead of a likely interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve later in the day.

Western Digital gained more than 3 percent and was the biggest tech gainer after the company agreed to settle a dispute with Toshiba.

Apple, Facebook and Paypal rose between 0.9 percent and 2 percent, boosting the Nasdaq.

At 9:32 a.m. ET (1432 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 33.54 points, or 0.14 percent, at 24,538.34 and the S&P 500 was up 3.77 points, or 0.14 percent, at 2,667.88. The Nasdaq Composite was up 23.10 points, or 0.34 percent, at 6,885.42.

S&P futures dipped 0.3 percent overnight on reports of Democrat Doug Jones winning a bitter fight for a U.S. Senate seat in deeply conservative Alabama on Tuesday.

A Jones victory could mean trouble for U.S. President Donald Trump's policy agenda as it narrows the Republicans' already slim majority in the Senate.

Jones is expected to take office in early January. Though his election will not effect the pending votes in Congress on a tax overhaul, it could add pressure on Republicans to get the bill through before the year end.
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