Updates prices to late afternoon

By Sinéad Carew and Shashwat Chauhan

May 14 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 seesawed between gains and losses on Wednesday as investors waited for the next batch of economic data after a robust start to the week spurred by soft inflation data and a U.S.-China tariff truce,

Investors were watching out for more trade developments during president Donald Trump's tour of the Gulf states as he secured $600 billion in commitments from Saudi Arabia, while some U.S. technology companies rallied after the administration announced artificial-intelligence-related deals in the Middle East on Tuesday.

Most megacap and growth stocks ticked up, with Nvidia NVDA.O among the top index boosts with a 3.7% jump. Advanced Micro Devices AMD.O gained 4% after the chip designer approved a new $6 billion share buyback program.

Boeing BA.N advanced 0.9% after state carrier Qatar Airways signed a deal to purchase jets from the U.S. planemaker during Trump's visit to Doha.

With Wednesday being a relatively quiet day for economic data, Andrew Graham, managing partner and founder of Jackson Square Capital, said investors were holding steady ahead of April's Producer Price Index $(PPI)$ and retail sales readings due on Thursday morning.

"People are looking for any sort of evidence that the tariff situation has leaked into the real economy," said Graham, but with 90-day pauses to tariff policies being announced on April 9 and again on Monday this week, he said he is less concerned.

"You're at a good news is good, but bad news gets a pass phase," he said.

At 02:19 p.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 81.80 points, or 0.19%, to 42,058.63, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 4.22 points, or 0.07%, to 5,890.77, and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC gained 113.66 points, or 0.60%, to 19,123.74.

While the indexes were little changed, eight of the 11 S&P sectors traded lower. Healthcare .SPXHC, down 2%, and utilities .SPLRCU, down 0.9%, were the weakest.

The biggest gainers were communications services .SPLRCL, up 1.5%, and technology .SPLRCT, which added about 0.7%.

U.S. stocks had gained ground in the first two days of the week after the United States and China hit pause on their fierce tariff dispute on Monday, signaling a joint effort to stave off a global economic downturn.

"The biggest fears that the market's been having are the impact of 'Liberation Day' and the tariff propositions that Trump put," said Lara Castleton, U.S. head of portfolio construction and strategy at Janus Henderson.

"The fact that we were able to back down a lot sooner than many people expected and come to a potential agreement with China was a big surprise and a relief for the market."

It also helped that data released on Tuesday showed U.S. consumer prices rebounded moderately in April.

U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson said on Wednesday that while recent inflation data pointed to progress towards the Fed's 2% inflation goal, the outlook was now uncertain. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said the data did not necessarily reflect the impact of rising tariffs.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is slated to speak on Thursday and his comments will be closely watched for clues on how the central bank plans to proceed with monetary policy easing.

While the S&P 500 closed with a tiny gain for 2025 on Tuesday, for the first time since late February, it was uncertain it would hold the year-to-date advance. The benchmark index is more than 4% below its February 19 record close.

The U.S. announcement of a 90-day tariff pause on April 9 for countries other than China, solid earnings reports and a limited U.S.-UK trade agreement last week, helped the benchmark indexes claw back.

American Eagle Outfitters AEO.N was among the few earnings-related movers, dropping 5.6% to around $12 after the apparel company withdrew its annual forecasts, citing tariff-fueled economic uncertainty.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 2.03-to-1 ratio on the NYSE where there were 110 new highs and 49 new lows.

On the Nasdaq, 1,581 stocks rose and 2,789 fell as declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.76-to-1 ratio. The S&P 500 posted 2 new 52-week highs and 8 new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 55 new highs and 91 new lows.

(Reporting by Sinéad Carew in New York, Shashwat Chauhan and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K and Pooja Desai and Aurora Ellis)

((sinead.carew@thomsonreuters.com; +13322191897; Shashwat.Chauhan@thomsonreuters.com;))