US open: Stocks flat following record closes for S&P 500 and Nasdaq

Wall Street stocks were little changed after open on Wednesday after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs ahead of Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole summit.

As of 1520 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.04% higher at 35,381.61, while the S&P 500 was up 0.11% at 4,491.28 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.09% stronger at 15,032.89.

The Dow Jones opened 15.35 points higher on Wednesday, extending modest gains recorded in the previous session that came as the FDA's full approval of Pfizer and BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine gave sentiment a boost.

Trading was somewhat muted at the open on Wednesday, with market participants continuing to hold out for the beginning of tomorrow's likely market moving symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Investors will have to wait to see whether or not central bankers will outline their plans for tapering monetary stimulus after already having started talks as to how to pull back on its $120.0bn a month bond-buying program by the end of 2021.

Traders were also digesting news that Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler had pledged to strictly enforce a three-year deadline that will require Chinese companies to allow inspections of financial audits or risk being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq as soon as 2024.

On the macro front, US mortgage applications increased 1.6% in the week ended 20 August, rebounding from a 3.9% fall in the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Applications to purchase a home surged 3% and those for refinancing were up 0.9% as the average fixed 30-year mortgage rate dropped three basis points to 3.03% - easing from a four-week high in the previous week.

Elsewhere, orders in the US for goods made to last more than three years dipped last month, dragged down by a decline in demand for civilian aircraft. According to the Department of Commerce, in Seasonally adjusted terms, total durable goods orders slipped in July at a month-on-month pace of 0.1% to reach $257.2bn (consensus: -0.3%). That was on top of a downward revision in June's rate of change of one-tenth of a percentage point to 0.8%.

In the corporate space, Box and Salesforce.com will be report their latest quarterly earnings figures after the close.