U.S. stocks were giving back some of their earlier gains in late morning trading on Wednesday. The S&P 500 was rising a modest 0.1% to trade near 6,454 as of 11:25 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq Composite was struggling between gains and losses at around 21,

Wall Street's major averages extended their gains on Wednesday and continue to hit new highs, a day after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq notched record closes fueled by heightened expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts.

The S&P 500 last gained 20.65 points, or 0.32%, to 6,394.10 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 69.38 points, or 0.32%, to 21,454.78.