A quiet day of trading for some of the market's biggest names saw the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) lead the declines.

But under the surface, there's been a sector rotation underway and new S&P 500 sectors are hitting fresh record closes. Materials (XLB) joined the list on Wednesday, notching its first record high since Dec. 31, 2021.

A rise in gas prices contributed to February's hotter-than-expected inflation print. And more pain at the pump for consumers is expected in the coming weeks.

Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferre reports:

Drivers can expect to pay higher prices at the pump in the coming weeks due to tighter gasoline supplies and a more expensive summer blend.

On Wednesday, the average price of gas in the US inched toward $3.40 per gallon, up $0.18 from a month ago, according to AAA data.

"This week, Gulf Coast refiners, which account for nearly 50% of the nation's refining capacity began to transition to the more expensive summer grade gasoline blends. That means that higher prices are ahead for consumers," wrote Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates in a note to clients on Wednesday.

"I expect further increases of another 10 to 15 cents per gallon over the next two weeks."

The February Consumer Price Index showed inflation remains stickier than initially hoped. A key driver in that reading was the shelter index, which saw an overall price increase of 5.7% during the month of February compared to the same month last year.

Within that index is owners' equivalent rent, which saw a 0.4% monthly gain in February. Notably, this was a move down from the surprising 0.6% monthly increase seen in January.

Economists suspect these price increases are set to slow further moving forward, though, as indicators in the private market — which aren't lagging like the CPI rent index — have decreased significantly over th fumio kishidae past year.

"Through the recent monthly volatility, the trend in housing inflation remains downward," Wells Fargo senior economist Sarah House wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday. "Both the year-over-year rate of OER and rent of primary residences registered the smallest increases since the summer of 2022, and a further slide appears in store with private-sector measures of rent growth having largely returned to their pre-pandemic rates."

US Steel (X) stock fell more than 12% in afternoon trade following a report from the Financial Times that President Biden plans to express serious concern over Nippon Steel's proposed $14.9 billion purchase of US. Steel.

Biden will issue the statement about the planned deal before Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends a state visit in Washington on April 18, per the FT.

Wow.

I have been at this gig for 20 years, 10 of which were spent on the sell-side covering retail stocks. In all my time doing this, I have never seen a retailer come out and say they would close 1,000 stores like Dollar Tree (DLTR) said today. This is shocking news for a company that has opened thousands of stores the past decade.

The stock is crashing 15%, as it should.

What a disaster.

Just three months ago the Dollar Tree's executive team — led by former hyped Dollar General (DG) CEO Rick Dreiling — was telling investors it would open 600 stores in 2023. Some three months later, it's closing 1,000 stores in part because of the failed acquisition of rival Family Dollar (former ticker: FDO for you investing historians out there).

While a few analysts have already come out praising Dollar Tree for announcing the store closures (it will save them money over time, supposedly), let's keep in mind that it's hard to trust Dollar Tree executives here after such an about-face.

The company's exit from towns really sticks it to low-income consumers, likely leading them to make tough decisions when shopping at the more expensive Walmart (WMT) if they live nearby one. The closures will also likely weigh on the near-term performance of the entire dollar store sector, and perhaps trigger other players to close stores.

In turn, more consumers stand to struggle.

The stock is a show me story at best for the time being.

Morgan Stanley analysts think US home prices will be on the decline by the end of this year.

“The increase in housing supply broadly, and for-sale inventory specifically, continue to drive our call for -3% [home price appreciation] by December 2024,” James Egan, a strategist at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note to clients Tuesday with the firm's housing research team.

Housing prices logged their 11th consecutive monthly gain in December, advancing 0.2% from the previous month the Case-Shiller Index showed Feb. 27 as tight existing home inventory keeps a floor on prices. On a yearly basis, home price growth accelerated to 5.5% from 5%.

The move upward comes as mortgage rates dropped below 7% for the first time in a month, spurring housing activity. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate slid 18 basis points, the biggest drop in nearly three months, to 6.84% for the week ending March 8, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Meanwhile, for-sale inventory slowly climbed from historical lows this month, growing by 14.8% and logging a fourth consecutive month of growth, per data from Realtor.com.

This also coincides with builders picking up more construction projects as single-family housing starts are up 8% since June and permits are up 9% from last year.

Dollar Tree (DLTR) led the Yahoo Finance trending tickers page as shares tumbled nearly 15%. The dollar-store chain's announcement that it would close nearly 1,000 stores was part of a quarterly release that also included lower quarterly revenue and earnings per share than Wall Street analysts had projected.

Block (SQ) stock jumped more than 5% in morning trade. The move came after Afterpay, which is owned by Block, revealed it has added more merchants to its buy now, pay later services.

Tesla (TSLA) stock fell more than 2% after Wells Fargo analysts called the electric vehicle maker a "growth company with no growth in a note that downgraded the stock to Underweight from Equalweight. The stock is now down more than 30% this year.

The House of Representatives advanced a bill that would give China's ByteDance six months to divest TikTok or face a US ban on the app on Wednesday morning.

Yahoo Finance's Ben Werschkul reports:

The vote surfaced national security concerns and scrambled Washington's usual partisan alliances.

"We have given TikTok a clear choice," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington said Wednesday. If ByteDance doesn't divest, the company will "side with the [Chinese Communist Party] and face the consequences."

But the legislation faces major hurdles in the weeks ahead. The Senate has shown less enthusiasm and is concerned about potential legal potholes. The signals from the upper chamber are that it could consider the bill slowly, if at all.

The proceedings in the House were injected with a dose of drama after a last-minute reversal from former President Trump on the issue following four years in office where he'd aggressively pushed for a ban.

Nonetheless, a large majority of the chamber's Republicans ended up bucking their party’s presumptive nominee and supported the bipartisan bill with 197 in favor and just 15 opposed.

The measure was also opposed by 50 Democrats, with some on the party's left flank suggesting getting behind a ban could hurt the party with young voters this November.

The overall vote was a broad bipartisan tally of 352-65.

The bill, if enacted, would set in motion a process that could lead to a ban on a key news source for young people and one with 170 million American users. But it's also an app that collects vast amounts of information about Americans and is owned by a company, ByteDance, that its critics say is under the control of the Chinese government.

ByteDance executives regularly deny the charge and say they operate separately from China's government. The company previously slammed this week's bill in a statement, saying "this legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States" and adding it will "destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country."

Yesterday's market action brought a reversal to the recent theory that a broadening was starting to take place in the stock market.

A rise of more than 7% in Nvidia (NVDA) shares and gains in other large tech companies carried stocks higher after a hotter-than-expected inflation report.

But early market action on Wednesday has brought a different tone. The Information Technology sector (XLK) is down more than 1%, leading the losses among the 11 sectors.

Meanwhile, some of the signs of broadening in the market we've highlighted over the past few weeks are back in vogue during early trade. Both the small-cap benchmark Russell 2000 index (^RUT) and the equal-weighted S&P 500 (^SP500EW) are outperforming the traditional market-cap-weighted S&P 500.

US stocks took a breather at the open on Wednesday after the S&P 500 wrapped up another all-time high, as investors shrugged off sticky inflation data to focus on fresh economic updates ahead.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) was down about 0.1% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) clung to a gain of less than 0.1% on the heels of Tuesday's sharp across-the-board gains. The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) was off about 0.3%.

Talk about an under-the-radar move. Blame all the focus on the AI names!

Shares of Nike (NKE) have tanked 7.7% this year, lagging the S&P 500’s 8.5% gain. The bears point to concerns about the pace of sales growth for Nike inside of the sluggish Chinese economy. I have even heard some chatter there could be C-suite changes on deck for this year.

But the dreadful quarter from Foot Locker (FL) last week got me to thinking there is a deeper problem with Nike. Maybe it’s not captivating the minds of consumers as it once did, consumers who are aggressively scooping up pairs of On Clouds (Yahoo Finance Live's chat with the company's co-CEOs on Tuesday) from On Holdings (ONON), and Hokas from Decker’s Outdoor (DECK).

The Morgan Stanley team seems to be thinking along these lines as well ahead of the company’s March 21 earnings report. Here’s their call-out on Nike’s production innovation:

With Nvidia’s (NVDA) big 7% reversal on Tuesday (some follow-through this morning), you get the sense traders want to believe recent volatility in the markets is over.

And who knows, maybe they will prove correct.

But I do want to remind you that this is a market that — based on a few measures (RSI Index, etc.) — is overextended and warranting of a pullback.

Just check out these two simple stats.

The S&P 500 has made 17 record highs this year, the most in any first quarter since 1945. Wow! And then two, the last time the S&P 500 fell more than 5% was in October.

It makes my day to see good old-fashioned dividends back en vogue amongst companies (I am not a stock buyback fan).

Corporate dividends globally reached an all-time high of $1.66 trillion in 2023, according to a new report from Janus Henderson today. That marked a 5% year-over-year increase.

The number could be even meatier in 2024 amid the first-ever dividend payouts from Meta (META) and Salesforce (CRM).

Playing around with Yahoo Finance data provides a look at some of the cash-rich, well-known companies that are both great dividend payers AND growers.