Financial Markets                      08/03 16:08

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.S. stock market rallied to the edge of its all-time 
high on Monday after easing oil prices helped calm Wall Street's worries that 
inflation could get even worse.

   The S&P 500 jumped 1.5% and is just 0.1% below its record set earlier this 
summer. It was coming off a frenetic July, where it swung up and down as oil 
prices shot higher because of the war with Iran, before ultimately ending the 
month just about where it started.

   The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which measures a narrower slice of the 
U.S. stock market, climbed 693 points, or 1.3%, to an all-time high, while the 
Nasdaq composite leaped 2.1%.

   Stocks got a lift as the price for a barrel of Brent crude sank 4.7% to 
$83.77. It dropped after President Donald Trump said over the weekend that he 
decided to hold off on new strikes against Iran at the urging of allies in the 
region.

   Brent's price careened between $72 and $102 last month as worries rose and 
fell about when the war with Iran would allow oil tankers to freely exit the 
Persian Gulf again to deliver crude to customers worldwide. The latest 
acquiescence by Trump helped to ease worries about the global flow of crude, 
and Treasury yields correspondingly fell in the bond market.

   The yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.68% from 4.75% late Friday. It, 
though, remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war with Iran.

   Higher yields threaten to undercut prices for stocks and other investments, 
while slowing the economy by making borrowing more expensive for U.S. 
households and businesses. The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate has already 
leaped to its highest level in a year.

   Monday's ease in oil prices helped airlines and other companies with big 
fuel bills lead the market. United Airlines flew 5.8% higher, while American 
Airlines climbed 5%. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings steamed 6.6% higher.

   Boeing jumped 8% after U.S. regulators certified its 737 MAX-7 planes, 
clearing them for commercial service.

   Tyson Foods rose 2.8% after the meat company reported a slightly stronger 
profit for the spring than analysts expected. CEO Donnie King said strength is 
continuing in the company's chicken business and its prepared foods, which 
include brands like Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farm.

   It joined a lengthening list of big U.S. companies to deliver a bigger 
profit for the spring than analysts expected. That's imperative for Wall Street 
because stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate earnings over the 
long term, and worries were rising that U.S. stock prices may have broadly 
already shot too high.

   Companies in the S&P 500 are on track to deliver earnings per share for the 
spring that are 47% higher than a year before, according to FactSet, with more 
than half of the companies in the index having already reported. If that ends 
up being the case, it would be the strongest growth since the spring of 2021, 
when the economy was roaring out of the COVID pandemic.

   Also offering encouragement for profits was a report on Monday showing that 
growth for U.S. manufacturing accelerated to its strongest level since 2022.

   Keeping Wall Street unsettled, though, were swings for stocks of companies 
that make computer chips. They've been veering up and down for weeks on worries 
about whether their surging revenues because of the artificial-intelligence 
boom are sustainable.

   If AI ends up producing less profit and productivity than hoped, Big Tech 
companies could curtail their spending sprees on data centers that have helped 
chip stocks soar to tremendous heights.

   Micron Technology went from a drop of 6.4% to a gain of 1.7% through the day 
before ending with a gain of 0.8%, for example. It's up roughly 190% for the 
year so far.

   All told, the S&P 500 rose 110.78 points to 7,600.50 and finished just shy 
of its all-time closing high of 7,609.78. The Dow Jones Industrial Average 
climbed 693.38 to 53,178.41, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 540.04 to 
25,913.90.

   The manic swings for AI stocks have been most dramatic in South Korea, where 
the Kospi index is dominated by just two tech titans, Samsung Electronics and 
SK Hynix.

   Seoul's Kospi fell 5.1% Monday, coming off Friday's 17.9% surge that was its 
best day in history.

   In neighboring Japan, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 fell 0.9% after the United States 
and Japan confirmed they had moved together to prop up the value of the 
Japanese yen against the dollar. A stronger yen would help to limit inflation 
in Japan, but it could also potentially hurt Japan's exporters.

   ___

   AP Writers Matt Ott, Elaine Kurtenbach, Mayuko Ono and Mari Yamaguchi 
contributed to this report.

   ---------

   itemid:d19a8f9a77b6fceca41da3e4b6bf17aa