The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 97.31 points, or 0.29 percent, to 34,230.34. The S&P 500 added 2.93 points, or 0.07 percent, to 4,167.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 51.08 points, or 0.37 percent, to 13,582.42.
Six of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in red, with utilities down 1.71 percent, leading the laggards. Energy jumped 3.33 percent, the best-performing group.
U.S.-listed Chinese companies traded mostly lower with nine of the top 10 stocks by weight in the S&P U.S. Listed China 50 index ending the day on a downbeat note.
On the economic front, private companies in the United States added 742,000 jobs in April, payroll data company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) reported Wednesday. This reading indicated a continued recovery in the labor market, but it was below expectations of 800,000 jobs from economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
U.S. Services PMI (Purchasing Managers' Index) fell to 62.7 percent last month from a record 63.7 percent in March, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said on Wednesday. Economists polled by Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal had forecast the index to edge up to 64.1 percent.
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