NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Oil prices rose Monday as the war with Iran\u00a0 threatens to drag on for longer, but the U.S. stock market nevertheless inched toward more records. <\/p>\n
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil climbed 2.9 per cent to settle at US$104.21 after President Donald Trump said the U.S.-Iran ceasefire was on \u201clife support\u201d after he rejected Iran\u2019s latest proposal to end their war. The rejection raises the stakes for Trump\u2019s trip this week to China, where he could urge President Xi Jinping to pressure Iran into making concessions. Xi has influence because China is the biggest buyer of Iran\u2019s sanctioned crude oil.<\/p>\n
The war has already sent the price for a barrel of Brent up from roughly US$70 and delivered a blast of painful inflation through the global economy. That\u2019s because it has shut the Strait of Hormuz and kept oil tankers stuck in the Persian Gulf instead of delivering crude to customers worldwide. <\/p>\n
Still, the U.S. stock market has set a run of records on hopes that the war will not keep oil prices high for very long. Companies are meanwhile producing bigger profits\u00a0 than analysts expected, while signals suggest the U.S. economy is holding up\u00a0 even though households are feeling discouraged by expensive gasoline and tariffs. <\/p>\n
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.2 per cent from its prior all-time high set on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 95 points, or 0.2 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.1 per cent to reach its own all-time high.<\/p>\n
The majority of stocks within the S&P 500 fell, even though the overall index rose. Among them was Mosaic, which reported much weaker results for the latest quarter than analysts expected.<\/p>\n
The fertilizer company is benefiting from higher prices for its products, but it\u2019s also contending with much higher prices for sulfur and other raw materials because of logistics snarls created by the war with Iran. Mosaic\u2019s stock fell 1.8 per cent.<\/p>\n
Stocks of companies whose customers have the least cushion to absorb higher gasoline prices also struggled, and Dollar General fell 7.6 per cent. Businesses with big fuel bills likewise had sharp losses, including drops of 4.3 per cent for Royal Caribbean and 3.2 per cent for Southwest Airlines. <\/p>\n
Helping to offset that was Fox, which climbed 7.6 per cent after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. <\/p>\n
More than four out of every five companies in the S&P 500 that have reported their results for the latest quarter so far have topped profit expectations, and they\u2019re on track to deliver overall growth of nearly 28 per cent, according to FactSet. If that turns out to be the case, it would be the best growth since the end of 2021.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just U.S. companies muscling past analysts\u2019 profit expectations. Globally, companies are on track for their strongest growth in more than four years, according to Deutsche Bank strategists led by Binky Chadha. The boom in artificial-intelligence technology\u00a0 has helped corporate profits rise at a faster rate than overall economies.<\/p>\n
Outside of earnings reports, Beazer Homes USA soared 34 per cent after Dream Finders Homes offered to buy it in a deal valued at roughly US$704 million. A combination would create the country\u2019s seventh-largest homebuilder, and Dream Finders is asking Beazer\u2019s shareholders to push its management and board to OK the deal after making several attempts itself. <\/p>\n
Dream Finders rose 5 per cent.<\/p>\n
Tech stocks were also strong, continuing their big run amid the AI boom. Gains of 2 per cent for Nvidia and 6.5 per cent for Micron Technology were the strongest forces pushing the S&P 500 upward. <\/p>\n
All told, the S&P 500 rose 13.91 points to 7,412.84. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 95.31 to 49,704.47, and the Nasdaq composite gained 27.05 to 26,274.13.<\/p>\n
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. France\u2019s CAC 40 fell 0.7 per cent for one of the world\u2019s bigger losses, while South Korea\u2019s Kospi soared 4.3 per cent thanks to gains for Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and other tech stocks benefiting from AI. <\/p>\n
In the bond market, Treasury yields ticked higher. The 10-year yield rose to 4.40 per cent from 4.38 per cent late Friday. <\/p>\n
Yields had moderated a bit this month, but they remain well above where they were before the war with Iran began. Higher yields can raise rates for mortgages\u00a0 and other kinds of loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which in turn can slow the economy. Higher yields also tend to push downward on prices for stocks and other kinds of investments.<\/p>\n
A report on Monday said the pace of sales for previously occupied U.S. homes was weaker last month than economists expected. <\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Stan Choe, The Associated Press. AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Oil prices rose Monday as the war with Iran\u00a0 threatens to drag on for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,77,66],"class_list":["post-663047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-international","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}