Profit Reports, Peace Hopes Lift Stocks to New Records

Oil prices sank and stock markets burst higher worldwide on Wednesday with hopes that a deal is nearing to allow tankers to deliver crude from the Persian Gulf again. The price for a barrel of Brent fell below $102.

• The S&P 500 rose 105.90 points, or 1.5%, to 7,365.12 and reached another record.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 612.34 points, or 1.2%, to 49,910.59.
• The Nasdaq composite rose 512.82 points, or 2%, to 25,838.94

Stock markets abroad jumped even more, the AP reports. Oil prices pared their steepest drops from the morning, though, and Wall Street has seen past hopes for an end to the Iran war get dashed several times.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, sank 7.6% to $101.56, down from more than $115 early this week. It dropped as President Trump said the Strait of Hormuz could be "OPEN TO ALL" if Iran accepts a reported agreement that the U.S. president did not detail. The price for a barrel of Brent briefly fell below below $97 before returning above $100 after Trump threatened to start bombing "at a much higher level and intensity" if Iran does not accept the agreement.

• On Wall Street, AMD helped lead the market with a surge of 18.6% after it joined the list of big-name companies topping expectations for both profit and revenue. CEO Lisa Su said the chip company benefited from continued growth from artificial-intelligence technology, which is demanding tremendous amounts of computing power from data centers. AMD also said its revenue growth could accelerate in the current quarter to roughly 46% from a year earlier.

Another company enmeshed in the AI industry, Super Micro Computer, rallied 24.5% after likewise delivering stronger earnings than analysts expected. Nvidia, the chip company that became the poster child of the AI boom, rose 5.7% and was the single strongest force lifting the S&P 500 because of its immense size. VS Health climbed 7.6% after delivering better results for the first quarter than analysts expected and raising its financial forecasts for the full year. The Walt Disney Co. gained 7.5% after saying its Zootopia 2 movie helped draw people to its streaming business, parks, and cruise ships, while delivering a better-than-expected profit. Uber Technologies drove 8.5% higher after giving a bookings forecast for the spring that was higher than analysts expected.

Outside of earnings reports, companies with big fuel bills jumped on hopes that oil prices will continue to ease. That included gains of 6.8% for United Airlines, 6.8% for Carnival, and 8.8% for Royal Caribbean.

• In stock markets abroad, indexes jumped 6.5% in Seoul, 2.9% in Paris, and 2.1% in London. South Korea's Kospi rose above the 7,000 level for the first time to a record, thanks to big gains for AI winners, including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.