Bokeh Capital Partners chief investment officer Kim Caughey Forrest:

"It's been a busy November, but that still doesn't really show us what we really want to see which is the economy moving. In fact, we're seeing it slide the other way. That's what makes us a little bit queasy when the market goes up."

Energy, materials, and industrials pulled the Dow down more than a half percent and the S&P more than one-tenth percent from its all-time high. But a rally by Amazon, Tesla and Apple drove the Nasdaq up half a percent.

Shares of Slack spiked higher. The office messaging app was the day's top mover on the Big Board. A source tells Reuters cloud-based software company Salesforce.com has approached Slack with an acquisition offer. Both companies were not immediately available for comment. Shares of Salesforce declined.

Gap was the biggest loser on the S&P 500. The apparel retailer's quarterly profit missed Wall Street's targets as a shift to online sales caused marketing and shipping costs to balloon.

Shares of Nikola fell after eight straight days of gains. In a CNBC interview, the electric truck maker's CEO Mark Russell failed to reassure investors that his company's deal with General Motors would still go through.