US stocks opened mostly lower Wednesday, as investors took a breather after a day in which tech stocks returned to growth despite hotter-than-expected inflation data.

Around 15 minutes into trading on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2 percent at 39,080.54.

The broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.2 percent to 5,165.90, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 0.5 percent to 16,182.33.

"The market is still focused on a rate cut," Thomas Quincy from LPL Financial told AFP.

The Federal Reserve has said it is currently weighing interest rates cuts, spurring speculation in the market about when policymakers will begin doing so.

Quincy said the market "remains overbought," but that this did not mean a slump in share prices was imminent.

"Markets can continue to remain overbought, it can remain oversold, but normally, there is a catalyst to pull the market and allow the market to digest the gains," he said.

Among individual firms, the discount retailer Dollar Tree saw its share price plummet 13.7 percent after it published its financial results for the fourth quarter.

Many of the big tech firms also saw their share price tick lower Wednesday, a day after they posted strong gains.

Facebook owner Meta was down around 1.3 percent, while iPhone maker Apple's shares fell around 0.8 percent.

Fresh retail spending and producer inflation data Thursday should help to illuminate "the path of inflation," said Quincy from LPL Financial.