NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� The U.S stock market motored to more records Thursday as profits keep piling up for , Caterpillar and other big businesses. The gains came after the latest whipsaw moves for oil prices, which surged toward their highest levels since began only to quickly regress.
The S&P 500 rallied 1% and topped its prior to close out its best month in more than five years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average leaped 790 points, or 1.6%, while the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.9% to its own record.
Alphabet led the way and rallied 10% after the owner of Google and YouTube reported profit for the latest quarter that almost doubled analysts鈥� expectations. Investments in artificial intelligence 鈥渁re lighting up every part of the business,鈥� CEO said.
It鈥檚 the latest company to for the start of 2026 than analysts expected, even with very high oil prices and uncertainty about the economy.
Wall Street鈥檚 strength followed manic swings in the oil market, where prices surged overnight on worries that the for a long time. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers, keeping them pent up in the Persian Gulf and away from customers worldwide, while a U.S. Navy blockade is preventing Iran from selling its own oil.
Traders are 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, for delivery in July, the price got as high as $114.70 per barrel overnight. It then fell back toward $107 before settling at $110.40, nearly unchanged from the day before.
So far during the war, the peak price for the most actively traded Brent contract is $119.50, which was set last month.
In a less actively traded corner of the Brent market, the price for a barrel to be delivered in June briefly went above $126 overnight before pulling back toward $114.
Brent鈥檚 price is still much more expensive than its roughly $70 level from before the war. But the morning鈥檚 easing in prices and the continuing flood of better-than-expected profit reports from U.S. companies helped keep Wall Street at its records.
Caterpillar soared 9.9%, Eli Lilly jumped 9.8% and O鈥橰eilly Automotive leaped 8.4% after all delivered profits for the latest quarter that topped analysts鈥� expectations. That鈥檚 big because stock prices tend to follow the track of corporate profits over the long term.
Still, a better-than-expected result isn鈥檛 always enough to boost a stock鈥檚 price if it鈥檚 already shot much higher.
tumbled 8.7% even though the company behind Facebook and Instagram made more profit last quarter than expected. Investors focused more on its increased forecast for how much it will spend on data centers and other investments as it builds out its AI capabilities.
Doubts are still high among some investors about whether all the AI spending by Meta and other companies will produce enough profit and productivity to make it worth it.
Microsoft fell 3.9% after likewise raising its forecast for investments and other capital spending. But analysts also said accelerating trends at its Azure business were encouraging.
rose 0.8% after swinging between gains and losses through the day. It blew past analysts鈥� expectations for earnings in the latest quarter.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 73.06 points to 7,209.01. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 790.33 to 49,652.14, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 219.07 to 24,892.31.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after oil prices gave up their big overnight gains. Reports also suggested the by less in the first three months of the year than economists expected, while a measure of in March by about as much as expected.
A separate report said that benefits last week in an indication of fewer layoffs even though are large cuts to .
The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.38% from 4.42% late Wednesday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a weaker finish in Asia.
London鈥檚 FTSE 100 jumped 1.6% after the That followed similar decisions by the on Wednesday and the on Tuesday to keep their rates unchanged.
Germany鈥檚 DAX returned 1.4%, and France鈥檚 CAC 40 rose 0.5% after the also held its own interest rates steady.
Hong Kong鈥檚 Hang Seng lost 1.3%, while stocks added 0.1% in Shanghai after a report said slowed slightly in April but remained in expansion territory for the second month.
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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
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