US Stocks Flirt With Record High       08/04 09:39

   The U.S. stock market is rising toward a record on Tuesday as big companies 
keep piling up profits and oil prices ease.

   NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.S. stock market is rising toward a record on Tuesday 
as big companies keep piling up profits and oil prices ease.

   The S&P 500 added 0.6% and is on track to top its all-time closing high set 
earlier in the summer. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 658 points, or 
1.2%, from its own record set the day before, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% 
higher, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time.

   Despite worries about high inflation, the war in Iran and a possible bubble 
in stock prices because of euphoria around the boom in artificial-intelligence 
technology, Wall Street is nearing its latest apex because profits are booming 
for companies. That's key because stock prices tend to follow the path of 
corporate earnings over the long term.

   Palantir Technologies helped lead the way and jumped 19.8% after CEO Alex 
Karp said its overall revenue leaped 93% in the spring from a year earlier in 
what he called an "otherworldly" quarter. Besides reporting a stronger profit 
for the latest quarter than analysts expected, the AI company also raised its 
revenue forecast for the full year of 2026.

   Caterpillar rallied 10.5% after the heavy-equipment maker likewise reported 
stronger profit and revenue for the spring than analysts expected. It was the 
first time Caterpillar made more than $20 billion in sales and revenue in a 
quarter, and CEO Joe Creed said it's seeing strong order rates and a growing 
backlog across its main businesses.

   They're the latest companies to deliver even better profits for the spring 
than investors expected, following strong results from Amazon, Microsoft and 
others. Coming into this week, companies in the S&P 500 index were on track to 
deliver growth in earnings per share for the spring of nearly 50% from a year 
earlier, according to FactSet.

   That would be the strongest growth since the historic numbers of the spring 
of 2021, when the economy was roaring out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

   Also helping stocks on Tuesday was another drop for oil prices.

   Brent crude, the international standard, sank 4.2% to $80.29 per barrel as 
hope once again takes over from fear in the oil market. It had swung sharply 
between $72 and $102 through July on uncertainty about when the war with Iran 
would allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf again to deliver crude 
around the world. It's jerked up and down many times, as uncertainty built, 
receded and then built again.

   The latest drop in oil prices helped to pull down yields in the bond market, 
which relaxes pressure on the overall economy and on prices for stocks and 
other investments.

   The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.63% from 4.70% Monday and from 
4.75% at the end of last week. That's a notable move for the bond market, but 
it remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war with Iran.

   In stock markets abroad, indexes rose modestly across much of Europe and 
Asia.

   South Korea's Kospi was an outlier and jumped 1.6%. Seoul has been home to 
some of the world's sharpest swings recently because its stock market is 
dominated by two companies that have been swept up in AI mania, Samsung 
Electronics and SK Hynix.

   The Kopsi had dropped 5.1% and soared 17.9% in the prior two days.

   Stocks of computer chip companies also held firmer on Wall Street, where 
gains of 2.4% for Nvidia, 6.9% for Micron Technology and 4.7% for Broadcom were 
some of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.

   ___

   AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

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