Big Profits Push Indexes to Records

The US stock market motored to more records Thursday as profits keep piling up for Alphabet, Caterpillar, and other big businesses. The gains came after the latest whipsaw moves for oil prices, which surged toward their highest levels since the war with Iran began, only to quickly regress.

• The Dow rose 790.33 points, or 1.6%, to 49,652.14.
• The S&P 500 rose 73.06 points, or 1%, to 7,209.01, topping its prior all-time high to close out its best month in more than five years.
• The Nasdaq rose 219.07 points, or 0.9%, to 24,892.31, also a record.

Alphabet led the way and rallied 10% after the owner of Google and YouTube reported profit for the latest quarter that almost doubled analysts' expectations, the AP reports. Investments in artificial intelligence "are lighting up every part of the business," CEO Sundar Pichai said. It's the latest company to deliver fatter profits for the start of 2026 than analysts expected, even with high oil prices and uncertainty about the economy. Wall Street's strength followed manic swings in the oil market, where prices surged overnight on worries that the Iran war will affect the flow of crude for a long time. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers, keeping them pent up in the Persian Gulf and away from customers worldwide, while a US Navy blockade is preventing Iran from selling its own oil.

Caterpillar soared 9.9%, Eli Lilly jumped 9.8%, and O'Reilly Automotive leaped 8.4% after all delivered profits for the latest quarter that topped analysts' expectations. That's big because stock prices tend to follow the track of corporate profits over the long term. Still, a better-than-expected result isn't always enough to boost a stock's price if it's already shot much higher. Meta Platforms tumbled 8.7% even though the company behind Facebook and Instagram made more profit last quarter than expected. Investors focused more on its increased forecast for how much it will spend on data centers and other investments as it builds out its AI capabilities. Microsoft fell 3.9% after likewise raising its forecast for investments and other capital spending. Amazon rose 0.8%; it blew past analysts' expectations for earnings in the latest quarter.