Oil prices keep falling, while US stocks hang near their record highs

The hope is that an end to the war will reopen the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure has kept oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf and sent prices higher for all kinds of products worldwide.

The US stock market is holding near its records Thursday as oil prices keep dropping on hopes that a deal may be nearing to allow tankers to carry crude once again from the Persian Gulf to customers. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, fell another 3.8 per cent to USD 97.38, down from more than USD 115 early this week. It and gasoline are still much more expensive than they were before the war with Iran began, but hope is rising in financial markets as Iran said it was reviewing the latest US proposals on ending their war. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 added 0.1 per cent to its all-time high set the day before after a spokesperson for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said, ''We expect an agreement sooner rather than later.'' Pakistan has been acting as a mediator between the United States and Iran. The hope is that an end to the war will reopen the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure has kept oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf and sent prices higher for all kinds of products worldwide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 59 points, or 0.1 per cent, as of 9:35 am Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2 per cent higher. Of course, Wall Street has rallied strongly before on hopes for a coming end to the war with Iran, only to get quickly disappointed. That could happen again, and tensions are still high in the Middle East after a US fighter jet shot out the rudder of an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman Wednesday as it tried to breach the American blockade of Iran's ports. Despite all those uncertainties, a powerful parade of big US companies saying they made even bigger profits during the first three months of the year than analysts expected has helped support the US stock market. That's important because stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term. DoorDash climbed 3.09 per cent after reporting better results for the latest quarter than expected. Datadog leaped 33.6 per cent after the monitoring and security platform for cloud applications likewise topped expectations for profit, while Vistra rose 4.6 per cent following the electricity company's better-than-expected results. They helped offset a 14.5 per cent drop for Whirlpool, which tumbled after reporting much weaker results than analysts expected. The seller of home appliances said it would raise prices by at least 10 per cent for some of its offerings, while accelerating cuts to its costs, as it contends with weaker confidence among US consumers. McDonald's held relatively steady and added 0.6 per cent after its revenue for the latest quarter edged past analysts' expectations. It credited a new burger and a continuing emphasis on value. In the bond market, Treasury yields fell with the price of oil. The yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.33 per cent from 4.36 per cent late Wednesday and from 4.45 per cent at the start of the week. Lower yields can bring down rates for mortgages and other kinds of loans going to US households and businesses, which in turn can give the economy a boost. Lower yields also tend to push upward on prices for stocks and other kinds of investments. The 10-year yield, though, remains well above its 3.97 per cent level from just before the war. Several reports on the US economy also came in mixed. One said more US workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, but the increase was not as bad as economists expected. Another suggested that productivity for US workers improved by only half of what economists expected last quarter. In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia. Japan's Nikkei 225 roared 5.6 per cent as it reopened following a holiday and caught up with big gains for other Asian markets from earlier in the week. It's at a record after soaring nearly 71 per cent in the 12 months on strength for tech stocks benefiting from the boom in artificial intelligence. ''I think it's a kind of bubble because buying activity concentrated on leading AI, artificial intelligence stock and semiconductor-related stocks. It's a situation where only semiconductor stocks are being bought,'' said Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at MONEX.