Oil prices whipsaw while U.S. stocks glide near their record heights

Bart Melek, global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the outlook on the markets.

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices whipsawed on Thursday and surged toward their highest levels since the war with Iran began, only for the leaps to quickly vanish. The U.S. stock market, meanwhile, is gliding following more strong profit reports from big companies like Alphabet and Amazon.

The S&P 500 rose 0.2 per cent and inched closer to its all-time high set earlier this week, as companies continue to deliver stronger profits for the start of 2026 than analysts expected despite high oil prices and uncertainty about the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 342 points, or 0.7 per cent, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2 per cent higher.

Alphabet helped lead the way and rose 6.7 per cent after the owner of Google and YouTube reported profit for the latest quarter that almost doubled analysts’ expectations. Amazon added 1 per cent after likewise blowing past analysts’ expectations for earnings.

Those gains came after manic swings in the oil market, where prices surged overnight on worries that the Iran war will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and tankers carrying crude pent up in the Persian Gulf and away from customers worldwide.

Traders are always buying and selling contracts for different kinds of oil, going out for many months. In the most actively traded part of the market for Brent crude, the international standard, the price got as high as US$114.70 for a barrel of Brent to be delivered in July. It then regressed to US$108.64, down 1.6 per cent.

The peak price for the most actively traded Brent contract so far during the war is US$119.50, set last month.

In a less popular corner of the Brent market, the price for a barrel to be delivered in June briefly went above US$126 before pulling back toward US$114.

That easing, along with the continuing flood of better-than-expected profit reports from U.S. companies, helped Wall Street to rise. Caterpillar, Eli Lilly and O’Reilly Automotive and Royal Caribbean all rallied more than 5 per cent after delivering profits for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ expectations.

That’s crucial for investors because stock prices tend to follow the track of corporate profits over the long term.

Still, a better-than-expected result isn’t always enough to boost a stock’s price if it’s already shot much higher.

Meta Platforms tumbled 10.1 per cent even though the company behind Facebook and Instagram made more profit last quarter than expected. Investors focused more on Meta’s increased forecast for how much it will spend on data centers and other investments this year as it builds out its artificial-intelligence capabilities, up to a range of US$125 billion to US$145 billion.

Doubts are still high among some investors about whether all that spending by Meta and other companies can produce enough profit and productivity to make it worth it.

Microsoft fell 2.8 per cent after it likewise raised its forecast for investments and other capital spending, while also highlighting some potentially discouraging trends for business related to personal computers. But analysts also said accelerating trends at its Azure business were encouraging.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after oil prices gave up their big overnight gains. Reports also suggested that U.S. economic growth accelerated by less in the first three months of the year than economists expected, while a measure of inflation worsened in March by about as much as expected.

A separate report said that fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week in an indication of fewer layoffs.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.38 per cent from 4.42 per cent late Wednesday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in much of Europe following a weaker finish in Asia.

London’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.5 per cent after the Bank of England kept its main interest rate on hold. The decision was widely expected and echoes the decisions of the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday and the Bank of Japan on Tuesday to keep rates unchanged.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.3 per cent, while stocks added 0.1 per cent in Shanghai after a report said China’s factory activity slowed slightly in April but remained in expansion territory for the second month.

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Stan Choe, The Associated Press. AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.