May sales of merchant wholesalers, except manufacturers’ sales branches and offices, after adjustment for seasonal variations and trading-day differences but not for price changes, were $460.8 billion, down 0.5% from the revised April level, but up 6.2% from the May 2016 level, the Census Bureau announced. The March 2017 to April 2017 percent change was revised from the preliminary estimate of down 0.4% to down 0.3%.

Tuesday, the Dow was virtually unchanged at 21,409.07, the NASDAQ increased 16.91 points (0.27%) to 6,193.30, and the S&P 500 decreased by 1.90 (0.08%) to 2,425.53. The Russell 2000 closed 4.58 points (0.33%) higher at 1,413.05, and the Wilshire 5000 ticked up 2.14 points (0.01%) to 25,229.45.

The price of the 10-year Treasury note and the price of the 30-year Treasury bond both increased 6/32, bringing their yields down to 2.355% and 2.919%, respectively.

ON THIS DATE: In 1862, the U.S. Congress authorized the Medal of Honor. In 1870, the first rotary can opener with a cutting wheel was patented by William W. Lyman. In 1933, a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour was established in the U.S. In 1954, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a highway modernization program, with costs to be shared by federal and state governments. In 1954, the Major League Baseball Players Association was organized in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1982, the last of the distinctive-looking Checker taxicabs rolled off the assembly line in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale named U.S. Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running mate. Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket. In 1999, Walt Disney Co. announced that it was merging all of its Internet operations together with Infoseek into Go.com.

WEDNESDAY WISDOM: “Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.”—Erma Bombeck, American journalist