Wall Street drifts as gains for oil companies help make up for Tesla's and IBM's losses

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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting near their record heights on Thursday, as oil prices jump after President Donald Trump announced “massive” new sanctions on Russia’s crude industry.

The S&P 500 added 0.4% and crept back within 0.4% of its all-time high set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 70 points, or 0.2%, and was near its own record set earlier this week. The Nasdaq composite was up 0.5%, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time.

Big U.S. oil companies helped drive the market higher, including gains of 1.1% for Exxon Mobil, 3.8% for ConocoPhillips and 4.1% for Diamondback Energy. They rose with prices for crude, which leaped roughly 5% after Trump announced sanctions against Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil.

The hope is to convince Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to end the brutal war with Ukraine, and sanctions could constrict the global flow of oil. The jumps helped oil prices recover some of their sharp recent losses, taken because of expectations for supplies of crude in inventories to remain plentiful. Oil prices are still down more than 10% for the year so far.

The gains for Exxon and other oil stocks helped offset a 3.8% drop for Tesla, which reported a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

IBM dropped even more, 4%, despite reporting better profit and revenue than analysts expected. Wall Street focused instead on weaker-than-expected results for its Red Hat business, which provides open-source software products.

Molina Healthcare lost nearly a fifth of its value and tumbled 19.9% after its profit for the latest quarter fell well short of analysts’ expectations. CEO Joseph Zubretsky cited a challenging environment for medical costs, and insurers across the industry have been warning about rising medical costs throughout the year.

The pressure is on companies broadly to deliver solid growth in profits. That would counter criticism that their stock prices shot too high following a 35% romp for the S&P 500 from a low in April.

The majority of companies have indeed been topping analysts' expectations this profit reporting season, which kicked into a higher gear this week. Some of Thursday's winners included Dow, which jumped 11.6%, and Las Vegas Sands, which rallied 12.1%. Both reported better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

In the gold market, prices strengthened to halt a sharp recent slide. The price for an ounce climbed 2.4% to rise back above $4,160 per ounce. It had dropped sharply the last two days after setting its latest all-time high, as momentum suddenly gave out following what’s been a stunning year. The price of gold has jumped 57.5% so far in 2025.

Many of the factors that have sent gold on its monumental rise this year are still around, including worries about the mountains of debt that the U.S. and other governments worldwide are amassing. The U.S. government's gross national debt topped $38 trillion on Wednesday, and the worry is that a continued acceleration will only worsen inflation.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 3.98% from 3.97% late Wednesday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Asia and Europe.

Stocks rose 0.7% in Hong Kong and 0.2% in Shanghai as leaders in Beijing wrapped up an important Communist Party meeting to set the agenda for the coming five years. The party said afterward that it will focus on speeding up self-reliance in science and technology.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.4%, and South Korea’s Kospi sank 1% for two of the world’s larger losses.

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AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.