Apple leads Wall Street toward more records as oil prices pull back

Options trader Matthew Hefter, center, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is rising toward more records Friday after Apple, Estee Lauder and others joined the list of companies delivering fatter profits for the start of the year than analysts expected. Easing oil prices also helped steady the stock markets around the world that were still open on the May Day holiday.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.6 per cent and was building on its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 17 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, as of 2:06 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was adding 1.1 per cent to its own record.

Apple led the way and rallied 3.5 per cent after the iPhone seller reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Because it’s one of Wall Street’s biggest stocks in terms of overall size, it was by far the strongest force lifting the S&P 500.

• Dow Jones updates here

Stock prices generally tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term, and U.S. companies have been blowing past expectations for earnings in the first three months of 2026. A little more than a quarter of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported already, and 84 per cent of them have topped analysts’ estimates, according to FactSet. The index is on track to deliver roughly 15 per cent growth in profit from a year earlier.

Estee Lauder’s stock climbed 3 per cent after reporting better earnings than expected, thanks in part to strength in China, and raising some of its upcoming financial forecasts. Colgate-Palmolive added 2 per cent after likewise delivering bigger results than expected, though CEO Noel Wallace said it expects “volatile macroeconomic conditions and slower category growth to continue in 2026.”

The main uncertainty for the global economy is where oil prices will go because of the Iran war. Oil prices spurted higher early this week on worries that the war will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed for a long time. That would in turn keep oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf instead of delivering crude to customers worldwide.

• S&P 500 market updates here

But such moves have repeatedly been quick to reverse throughout the war, as hopes rise and fall for a reopening of the strait. On Friday, the price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 2.6 per cent to US$107.52 and trimmed its gain for the week to roughly 9 per cent. Brent was selling for a little more than US$70 per barrel before the war began.

That rise since the end of February helped the two biggest U.S. oil companies report stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. But stock prices nevertheless fell for both Exxon Mobil, 1.3 per cent, and Chevron, 1.5 per cent, as oil prices regressed and each reported drops in net income from a year earlier.

The fall in oil prices also helped Treasury yields ease in the bond market. So did a report in the morning that said growth for U.S. manufacturing was a touch softer last month than economists expected.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.38 per cent from 4.40 per cent late Thursday. Such drops in yields can make mortgages and other loans for U.S. households and businesses cheaper, and they also tend to give upward pushes to prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments.

Many stock markets worldwide were closed for May Day. Among the indexes still trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.4 per cent, and London’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.1 per cent.

___

Stan Choe, The Associated Press. AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.