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Indexes up: Dow 0.37%, S&P 500 0.45%, Nasdaq 0.77%

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Nvidia ( NVDA ) first company to hit $4 trillion market value

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AES ( AES ) jumps on report of sale efforts

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UnitedHealth ( UNH ) down on report of DOJ's Medicare billing

probe

(Updates prices to late afternoon)

By Sinéad Carew and Pranav Kashyap

July 9 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 extended gains slightly

on Wednesday following the release of minutes from the last

Federal Reserve meeting, after Nvidia ( NVDA ) briefly reached a $4

trillion valuation and as investors awaited more details on

President Donald Trump's trade policy.

The minutes showed narrow support for an interest rate cut

later this month, with only "a couple" of Fed officials at its

June 17-18 meeting saying they felt rates could fall in July.

Most policymakers continued to worry about the expected

inflationary pressure from Trump's import taxes.

Nvidia ( NVDA ) was last up 1.7% after it became the world's

first company to hit a $4 trillion market value Wednesday

morning, solidifying its position as one of Wall Street's most

favored stocks to tap in the ongoing surge in demand for

artificial intelligence technologies.

The S&P 500's other main boosts came from megacap companies

including Microsoft Corp ( MSFT ) and Amazon.com ( AMZN ).

"There's definitely a megacaps bias ... to some extent it's

a flight to safety but not what you would traditionally think of

as a safety trade," said Kevin Gordon, senior investment

strategist at Charles Schwab. "From a trade standpoint it's not

like you're getting much clarity."

At 2:14 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average

rose 164.00 points, or 0.37%, to 44,404.76, the S&P 500

gained 28.01 points, or 0.45%, at 6,253.53 and the Nasdaq

Composite climbed 157.20 points, or 0.77%, to 20,575.90.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500's major industry sectors were

advancing, with utilities and communication services

leading gainers, while defensive consumer staples

was the biggest decliner.

Trump on Wednesday issued letters to seven countries,

calling for tariffs of 30% on Algeria, Iraq, Libya and Sri

Lanka, 25% on Brunei and Moldova, and 20% on the Philippines.

The European Union has said it could reach an outline

trade agreement with the U.S. in the coming days.

On Tuesday, Trump had ramped up his trade offensive with

the announcement of a 50% tariff on copper and a vow to slap

long-threatened levies on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.

On Monday, Trump

hit 14 trading partners

with a fresh wave of tariff warnings, including Japan and

South Korea.

While Wall Street indexes had fallen on trade jitters on

Monday, they have steadied since then, with analysts noting that

investors have become used to Trump's pattern of saber-rattling

on tariffs. And with the deadline for the latest tariffs pushed

to August 1, many are betting that negotiations will defuse the

trade war.

"The tariff issue continues to be this sort of seesaw and

because of that back-and-forth, it obviously has given investors

a bit of a calm," said Philip Blancato, chief market strategist

at Osaic Wealth.

Meanwhile, after last week's record closes for the S&P 500

and the Nasdaq - buoyed by a surprisingly robust jobs report

-investors are turning their attention to Thursday's initial

jobless claims for the next pulse check on the labor market.

Among individual stocks, AES Corp ( AES ) jumped 18.7% after

Bloomberg reported that the power provider was exploring

options, including a sale.

Boeing ( BA ) advanced 4.1% as Susquehanna raised its price

target after the planemaker reported on Tuesday that its

airplane deliveries in June increased 27% on a yearly basis.

UnitedHealth Group ( UNH ) slipped 1.7% after the Wall

Street Journal reported that the U.S. Department of Justice was

investigating how the health insurer deployed doctors and nurses

to gather diagnoses that increased its Medicare payments.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.97-to-1 ratio

on the NYSE where there were 205 new highs and 30 new lows on

the NYSE.

On the Nasdaq, 2,747 stocks rose and 1,656 fell as advancers

outnumbered decliners by a 1.66-to-1 ratio. The S&P 500 posted

17 new 52-week highs and six new lows while the Nasdaq Composite

recorded 64 new highs and 42 new lows.