NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose in morning trading on Wall Street Wednesday and added to their records set a day earlier, while oil prices held steady.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 487 points, or 0.9%, as of 9:53 a.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.3%.
The S&P 500 and the Dow both set records on Tuesday, while the Nasdaq is less than 2% from its record. Every major index has been surging this week, giving August a strong start.
The market is leaping as companies head into the closing stretch of their latest round of earnings reports with sharp overall gains. Three-quarters of the companies within the S&P 500 have reported results so far and Wall Street expects profit growth of 50% when they are all finished.
The Walt Disney Co. is the latest to report strong financial results for its latest quarter. Disney rose 3.2% after easily beating Wall Street’s profit forecasts, helped by a $1 billion box office haul from “Toy Story 5” and theme park revenue.
Booking Holdings jumped 5.5% after reporting that strong travel demand drove profit and revenue growth during its most recent quarter.
SpaceX fell 10.7%, despite on late Tuesday reporting a smaller loss than Wall Street expected in its first quarterly report as a public company. The company did help give semiconductor giant Nvidia a 3.9% boost after announcing it would exclusively use that company’s computer chips for its artificial intelligence technology.
Strong corporate profits and expectations for more growth ahead have been steering stocks higher, despite worries about high inflation.
Uncertainty about the direction of the U.S. war with Iran continues hanging over the market. President Donald Trump said a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could come as early as Wednesday. But there have been many stops and starts during the five-month old conflict that has stifled the global supply of oil and rattled energy markets.
The price of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.1% to $79.41 a barrel.
Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.64% from 4.63% late Tuesday.
Markets in Asia rose. Benchmarks jumped more than 3% in Tokyo and Seoul as shares in computer chipmakers and other AI-related companies advanced. European markets also gained ground.
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Associated Press writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Mayuko Ono contributed to this report.
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