Wall Street drifts higher toward records as oil companies, tech stocks gain ground

Audio By Carbonatix

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting near their record heights on Thursday, as oil prices jump after President Donald Trump announced “massive” new sanctions on Russia’s crude industry.

The S&P 500 added 0.6% and crept back within 0.2% of its all-time high set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 125 points, or 0.3%, and was near its own record set earlier this week. The Nasdaq composite was up 0.9%, as of 1:14 p.m. Eastern time.

Big U.S. oil companies helped drive the market higher, including gains of 1.3% for Exxon Mobil, 3.4% for ConocoPhillips and 4.1% for Diamondback Energy. They rose with prices for crude, which leaped nearly 6% after Trump announced sanctions against Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil.

The hope is to convince Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to end the brutal war with Ukraine, and sanctions could constrict the global flow of oil. The jumps helped oil prices recover some of their sharp recent losses, taken because of expectations for supplies of crude in inventories to remain plentiful. Oil prices are still down more than 10% for the year so far.

Tesla rose 1.1%, recovering from an early slip after it reported a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

Several big technology stocks also helped support the broader market's gains. Nvidia rose 1% and Apple rose 0.5%.

On the losing end, IBM fell 1%, despite reporting better profit and revenue than analysts expected. Wall Street focused instead on weaker-than-expected results for its Red Hat business, which provides open-source software products.

Molina Healthcare lost a fifth of its value and tumbled 20.4% after its profit for the latest quarter fell well short of analysts’ expectations. CEO Joseph Zubretsky cited a challenging environment for medical costs, and insurers across the industry have been warning about rising medical costs throughout the year.

The pressure is on companies broadly to deliver solid growth in profits. That would counter criticism that their stock prices shot too high following a 35% romp for the S&P 500 from a low in April.

The majority of companies have indeed been topping analysts' expectations this profit reporting season, which kicked into a higher gear this week. Some of Thursday's winners included Dow, which jumped 10.7%, and Las Vegas Sands, which rallied 11.9%. Both reported better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

In the gold market, prices strengthened to halt a sharp recent slide. The price for an ounce climbed 2.2% to $4,152.80 per ounce. It had dropped sharply the last two days after setting its latest all-time high, as momentum suddenly gave out following what’s been a stunning year. The price of gold has jumped more than 57% so far in 2025.

Many of the factors that have sent gold on its monumental rise this year are still around, including worries about the mountains of debt that the U.S. and other governments worldwide are amassing. The U.S. government's gross national debt topped $38 trillion on Wednesday, and the worry is that a continued acceleration will only worsen inflation.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.00% from 3.97% late Wednesday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across Europe following a more mixed finish in Asia.

Stocks rose 0.7% in Hong Kong and 0.2% in Shanghai as leaders in Beijing wrapped up an important Communist Party meeting to set the agenda for the coming five years. The party said afterward that it will focus on speeding up self-reliance in science and technology.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.4%, and South Korea’s Kospi sank 1% for two of the world’s larger losses.

___

AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.