US stocks hang near their record as Wall Street takes a breath following two big days
NEW YORK AP U S stocks hung near their all-time high on Wednesday as financial markets caught a breath following two big days bolstered by hopes that the Israel-Iran war will not disrupt the global flow of crude oil The S P barely budged after drifting through a quiet day of trading and is sitting just below its all-time high which was set in February The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped points or and the Nasdaq composite rose In the oil sphere which has been the center of much of this week s action crude prices stabilized after plunging by roughly per barrel in the last two days Benchmark U S crude rose cents to per barrel though it still remains below where it was before the fighting between Israel and Iran broke out nearly two weeks ago A fragile ceasefire between the two countries appears to be holding at least for the moment On Wall Street FedEx fell despite reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected It gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that fell short of expectations General Mills the company behind Pillsbury and Progresso soups lost after reporting weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected though its profit topped forecasts It also noted an underlying measure of profit could fall by to this upcoming fiscal year On the winning side of Wall Street Bumble jumped after the online dating platform stated it would cut about of its workforce or jobs to save up to million in annual costs QuantumScape rallied after announcing a breakthrough in its process for making solid-state batteries Solid state battery machinery promises to improve electric automobile range decrease charging times and minimize the exposure of battery fires But the batteries are expensive to research and formidable to manufacture at a large scale giving them a reputation for being a Holy Grail for battery engineers all over the world Companies involved in the cryptocurrency industry meanwhile rose as the price of bitcoin continued to steam ahead with investors willing to take on more exposure Coinbase Global the crypto exchange climbed as bitcoin topped All explained the S P edged down by to points The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell to and the Nasdaq composite rose to In the bond realm Treasury yields held relatively steady and the yield on the -year Treasury eased to from late Tuesday Yields had dropped a day earlier after the chair of the Federal Reserve disclosed it is waiting for the right moment to resume cutting interest rates By lowering rates the Fed could give the financial sector a boost but it could also offer additional fuel for inflation Fed Chair Jerome Powell reported again on Wednesday that he wants to wait and see how President Donald Trump s tariffs affect the commercial sector and inflation before committing to its next move In testimony before a Senate committee Powell echoed a multitude of of his statements from the day before when he spoke at the House of Representatives and he explained For the time being we are well positioned to wait to learn more about the likely syllabus of the commercial sector before considering any adjustments to our plan stance In stock markets abroad indexes fell modestly in Europe after rising across much of Asia Stocks jumped in Hong Kong and in Shanghai for two of the bigger moves The world can now move on to face other formidable choices like tariffs and things like that revealed Frances Lun CEO of GEO Securities in Hong Kong So I think the field is well on its way to rebound and could again reach new levels AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed
