02:19 PM EDT, 09/10/2024 (MT Newswires) -- US benchmark equity indexes were mixed after midday Tuesday as markets awaited official consumer inflation data for August due Wednesday.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.4% at 16,944.5 intraday, while the S&P 500 rose 0.1% to 5,477.3. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4% to 40,669.6. Among sectors, real estate paced the gainers, while energy saw the steepest decline.

In economic news, government data are likely to show Wednesday that US consumer inflation rose 0.2% sequentially and 2.6% annually last month, according to a Bloomberg-compiled consensus. The official producer prices report for August is scheduled to be released Thursday.

Small business optimism in the US waned last month driven by weak sales volume expectations, while inflation remained the most-pressing concern among business owners, the National Federation of Independent Business' latest survey showed.

The US two-year yield decreased 6.3 basis points to 3.60% intraday, while the 10-year rate lost 4.9 basis points to 3.65%.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil slumped 4.3% to $65.79 a barrel. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cut its 2024 and 2025 global oil demand projections. The cartel expects the global economy to rise 3% this year, compared with a 2.9% rate previously expected.

In company news, Oracle (ORCL) shares jumped nearly 12%, the best performer on the S&P 500. The software maker late Monday posted fiscal first-quarter results that surpassed Wall Street's estimates, driven by strength in its cloud offerings.

Separately, Oracle and Amazon.com's ( AMZN ) Amazon Web Services on Monday announced a new offering that allows customers to access Oracle Autonomous Database on dedicated infrastructure and Oracle Exadata Database Service within the e-commerce giant's cloud-computing unit.

Amazon ( AMZN ) shares were up 2.7% intraday Tuesday, the top gainer on the Dow and among the best on the S&P 500.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise ( HPE ) saw the steepest decline on the S&P 500, down 7%. The company late Monday said it had launched a public offering of $1.35 billion of its series C mandatory convertible preferred shares.

GameStop ( GME ) , Dave & Buster's Entertainment (PLAY) and Petco Health and Wellness ( WOOF ) are among the companies scheduled to report their latest quarterly financial results after Tuesday's closing bell.

Gold was up 0.4% at $2,542.60 per troy ounce, while silver fell 0.1% to $28.63 per ounce.