Wall Street flat as investors pause after record-setting day

Little changed as Wall Street opened on Wednesday as investors paused after a day when the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq hit record highs and the Dow closed 0.4 percent shy of its all-time high.

A rally since late June has left the S&P up nearly 7 percent in 2016, as expectations of continued low interest rates encourage investors to buy into equities.

"Everybody is at the beach and they aren't even calling in trades anymore," said Kim Forrest, a senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

"In times of low volumes, moves up or moves down are greatly exaggerated, because there is not enough participants to absorb those extra shares."

Trading volumes have been near year-lows since Monday as the second-quarter earnings season winds down.

Oil prices reversed course to trade slightly higher in choppy trading on Wednesday.

The dollar index .DXY fell for the second straight day as weak U.S. productivity data on Tuesday somewhat dimmed the prospects of economic growth and would likely deter the Federal reserve from raising interest rates.

At 9:37 a.m. ET (1337 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was down 3.01 points, or 0.02 percent, at 18,530.04.

The S&P 500 .SPX was down 0.61 points, or 0.03 percent, at 2,181.13.

The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was down 5.98 points, or 0.11 percent, at 5,219.50.

Six of the 10 major S&P 500 indexes were higher, led by a 0.36 percent rise in consumer staples .

Shares of Dow component Walt Disney (DIS.N) fell 0.7 percent to $96.01, after the company reported results overnight and bought a 33 percent stake in video-streaming firm BAMTech.

Yelp (YELP.N) jumped 13 percent to $36.90 after the company reported a surprise profit and raised its full-year revenue forecast.