NEW YORK — Wall Street is ticking closer to its record high on Tuesday after the price of Brent oil fell back below US$100 per barrel. The S&P 500 rose 0.2 per cent and pulled within 0.2 per cent of its all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 124 points, or 0.2 per cent, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was adding 0.4 per cent to its own record. Stocks got a boost after the price for a barrel of Brent crude fell 1.9 per cent to US$98.46. It’s come down from nearly US$110 last week, though it’s still much more expensive than the roughly US$72 it was fetching before the war with Iran began. It’s been swinging with uncertainty about when the war will allow crude to freely flow again from the Middle East to customers worldwide. The past week’s fall for oil prices has pulled Treasury yields down in the bond market, which has eased some of the pressure on the stock market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury topped 5 per cent last week for the first time since 2023, and high yields slow the economy by making it more expensive for everyone to borrow money. The 10-year yield edged down to 4.95 per cent from 4.96 per cent late Monday, though it also remains far above where it was before the war with Iran began, 3.97 per cent. On Wall Street, stocks of companies with big fuel bills were strong because lower oil prices could mean less pressure on costs for not only themselves but also for their customers. Cruise operator Carnival climbed 4 per cent, and American Airlines added 2.2 per cent. AutoZone rose 2.7 per cent after the retailer reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its revenue fell short. CEO Phil Daniele said the auto parts seller faced “a difficult selling environment” in the first two months of the quarter, but it improved afterward and “we feel we are well positioned for sales growth” in its upcoming fiscal year. At Thor Industries, which sells recreational vehicles, the mood was more muted. CEO Bob Martin said expensive fuel, high interest rates and still-high inflation are stretching its customers’ budgets, and business “never reached the inflection point many in the industry expected” in its latest fiscal year. Its stock rose 0.9 per cent, though, after it delivered a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Such strong profit reports are one of the main reasons the U.S. stock market has reached the brink of its all-time high despite high oil prices, stubborn inflation and jitters about whether stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry shot too high. Many companies are close to closing the books on their third quarter of the year, which ends with September. And analysts are forecasting companies in the S&P 500 will report overall growth of nearly 29 per cent for the quarter from a year earlier, according to FactSet. If they’re right, it would be the third straight quarter of growth better than 25 per cent for the index. And stock prices tend to follow the track of corporate profits over the long term. On Holding’s stock that trades in the United States jumped 10.3 per cent after the Swiss sneaker and sportswear company unveiled its financial goals for upcoming years. It also approved a plan to buy back up to US$1 billion of its stock through 2029. Such purchases send cash directly to investors and boost the company’s per-share performance. Lagging behind in the market were several AI stocks, particularly chip companies. Advanced Micro Devices slipped 0.4 per cent, for example, but that was only after it jumped nearly 10 per cent the day before. AI stocks were under pressure through the summer on concerns that prices shot too high in the frenzy around the technology. More recently, leaders of the industry have been calling for a slowdown in the industry’s development for the safety of humanity. In stock markets abroad, indexes ticked higher across much of Europe and Asia. Stocks rose 0.2 per cent in Hong Kong and 0.1 per cent in Shanghai after Alibaba unveiled new artificial intelligence chip technologies, including what it said was China’s most powerful AI chip. That comes just days ahead of a meeting between Chinese and U.S. leaders at which competition to lead on AI technology is expected to be a major theme. ___ Stan Choe, The Associated Press AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report.
