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Wall Street's key indices fell on Wednesday as the markets searched for clues on the outlook for interest rates.

At 11:39 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 105.49 points, or 0.22%, to 48,008.04, the S&P 500 lost 53.59 points, or 0.79%, to 6,746.67 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 292.03 points, or 1.26%, to 22,816.43.

At 9:34 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 169.09 points, or 0.35%, to 48,283.35, the S&P 500 gained 7.72 points, or 0.11%, to 6,807.98 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 18.17 points, or 0.08%, to 23,129.63.

December is traditionally a robust month for the stock market, but the recent rally has been tempered by two primary headwinds - lingering worries over lofty AI stocks valuation and monetary policy uncertainty.

Investors are increasingly cautious over the rapid valuation gains in artificial intelligence stocks, leading to questions regarding the sustainability of current price levels. They are also grappling with the growing concern that the Federal Reserve may pause its interest rate cutting cycle.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury held steady at 4.15%.

Medline's shares were indicated to open up to 6.9% above their offer price in their Nasdaq debut on Wednesday, giving the medical supply giant a potential valuation of $40.42 billion.

The medical supplier raised $6.26 billion in the year’s biggest Initial Public Offering.

Oracle shares declined 5% after a report said the cloud company's largest data center partner Blue Owl Capital said it will not back a $10 billion deal for its next facility.

Amazon.com stock gained 0.8% after reports that the company was in talks to invest about $10 billion in ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

AI bellwether Nvidia fell 1.8% on Wednesday.

Netflix's shares gained 1.2% after Warner Bros Discovery board rejected Paramount Skydance's $108.4 billion hostile bid.

Paramount and Warner Bros dropped 4.8% and 1.1%, respectively.

Jabil shares climbed 6.2% after the electronic component maker forecast annual revenue and profit above estimates.

Lennar stock shed 3.6% as the homebuilder missed fourth quarter profit estimates.

Energy stocks rallied after President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela.

ConocoPhillips rose 2.6%, Devon Energy climbed 3.5%, and Halliburton added 1.6%.

Oil prices jumped on Wednesday after Trump ordered a complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, raising global political tensions.

At 1414 GMT, Brent crude futures were up 81 cents, or 1.37%, at $59.73 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate crude was up 74 cents, or 1.34%, to $56.01 a barrel.

Gold prices rose, while silver prices briefly surpassed $66 an ounce to a record high on Wednesday.

Spot gold gained 0.8% to $4,335.64 an ounce by 09:38 a.m ET (14:38 GMT). US gold futures were also 0.8% up at $4,367.10.

Spot silver rose 2.8% to $65.55 an ounce, after touching an all-time high of $66.52 earlier in the session.

Platinum rose 2.3% at $1,892.60 and palladium added nearly 1% to $1,618.44.

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