NEW YORK — U.S. stock indexes barely budged on Wednesday after oil prices climbed another three per cent as fighting continues in the war with Iran. The S&P 500 edged down by 0.1 per cent, coming off its best day in three weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 6 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.6 per cent. Despite the modest moves for indexes, stocks had some big swings underneath the surface. Philip Morris International rallied 3.3 per cent after the seller of Marlboro cigarettes reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. Its shipments of smoke-free products rose 7.5 per cent. AT&T climbed 3.5 per cent after reporting a stronger profit than analysts expected. CEO John Stankey also said the telecom is accelerating plans to send roughly US$10 billion to its shareholders this year through the buybacks of its stock. Super Micro Computer soared 19.8 per cent after the seller of AI servers said it expects to report stronger profit margins for the latest quarter than it had earlier forecast. It, though, also said that revenue will likely come in at the low end of its forecasted range of US$11 billion to US$12.5 billion. On the losing side of the market was GE Vernova, which fell 8.7 per cent after reporting a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Alphabet sank 1.5 per cent ahead of its earnings report, which arrived after trading ended for the day. Anticipation was high, and not just because the parent company of Google is one of the largest stocks on Wall Street. It’s also one of the biggest spenders on artificial-intelligence technology. Investors are looking for signs that the deluge of dollars going into processors, computer memory and other building blocks of the AI boom are producing enough profits to make the investments worth it. If Alphabet and other “hyperscalers” say that isn’t the case, stocks of chip companies and other AI winners would look very expensive following their monumental moves higher. Such worries have kept AI stocks at the center of Wall Street’s swings for weeks, and they helped drag the market up and down Wednesday. Micron Technology swung between a loss of 3.6 per cent and a gain of 1.2 per cent before finishing with a drop of 1.2 per cent. That’s after it jumped 14.4 per cent in the first two days of this week to reclaim nearly all its 13.3 per cent plunge from the week before. It’s still up 236 per cent for the year so far. All told, the S&P 500 fell 10.24 points to 7,498.96. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 6.06 to 52,218.58, and the Nasdaq composite sank 146.30 to 25,690.90. Stocks broadly also felt pressure from continuing climbs for oil prices, which raise costs for most businesses and erode their profits. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 3.4 per cent to US$94.07 and briefly topped US$95 in the morning to touch its highest level in nearly six weeks. That’s up from less than US$72 early this month, which is roughly where it was before the war with Iran. Rising oil prices are threatening a reacceleration of inflation. That in turn could push the Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates, which would slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and other investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.65 per cent from 4.63 per cent late Tuesday and from just 3.97 per cent before the war with Iran began. It’s already helped bring long-term U.S. mortgage rates to their highest levels in nearly a year. Oil prices have climbed as fighting in the Middle East keeps oil tankers from using the Strait of Hormuz to exit the Persian Gulf. Normally, a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded passes through the narrow strait. The auto club AAA said Wednesday that the average price for a gallon of regular gas in the U.S. jumped again overnight to US$4.06. That’s still below highs of around US$4.56 per gallon in May, but it had been below US$3 before the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February. In stock markets abroad, indexes climbed in Europe following a mixed session in Asia. London’s FTSE 100 rose 1.2 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell one per cent for two of the world’s bigger moves. ___ Stan Choe, The Associated Press AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
