NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is flirting with its all-time high on Friday.
The S&P 500 rose 0.5% and is on track to squeak past its record closing level, which was set in late October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 238 points, or 0.5%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% higher.
If the S&P 500 finishes the day at an all-time high, it would be just the latest time the U.S. stock market has powered past what appeared to be a debilitating set of worries. Most recently, those concerns centered on what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates, whether too many dollars are flowing into artificial-intelligence technology and if sharp drops for cryptocurrencies would bleed over into other markets.
Ulta Beauty helped lead the way on Friday and jumped 11% after the retailer reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Kecia Steelman said its customers are broadly feeling pressure, but Ulta saw growth across its categories, particularly in e-commerce. It raised its forecast for revenue over the full year.
Another encouraging signal for the holiday shopping season came from Victoria’s Secret & Co. It reported a milder loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected, and it likewise raised its forecast for sales over the full year. Its stock jumped 20.4%.
Warner Bros. Discovery was also strong and rose 3.2%. Netflix said it would buy Warner Bros. for $72 billion in cash and stock following the pending split for the company behind HBO Max, “Casablanca” and “Harry Potter” from Discovery Global.
The deal between the two giants could raise fears about too much industry power residing in one company, though, meaning it may not be a sure thing. After initially falling more than 5%, Netflix's stock pared its drop to a dip of 0.2%.
Paramount Skydance, which earlier had been seen as a front-runner to buy Warner Bros., fell 6.3%.
Also on the losing end of Wall Street was Hewlett Packard Enterprise. It slipped 0.6% after reporting weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts forecast, though its profit topped expectations.
The U.S. stock market broadly has been much quieter this week. It’s a respite following earlier weeks of sharp and scary swings.
After some back and forth, the widespread expectation among traders is that the Fed will cut its main interest rate next week in hopes of shoring up the slowing U.S. job market. If it does, that would be the third cut of the year, and such expectations have been a major reason the S&P 500 has climbed back toward its record.
Investors love lower interest rates because they boost prices for investments and can juice the economy. The downside is that they can worsen inflation, which is stubbornly remaining above the Fed’s 2% target.
A set of economic reports released on Friday did little to change expectations for a coming cut. One report said that an underlying measure of inflation that the Fed prefers to use was at 2.8% in September, exactly as economists expected.
A separate report said U.S. consumers appear to be bracing for less-bad inflation in the coming year. They're now forecasting 4.1% inflation for the year ahead, down from their forecast of 4.5% last month, and the lowest reading since January, according to the University of Michigan. That's important because when expectations for inflation are doing the opposite and rising, it can create a vicious cycle that only worsens inflation.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained at 4.11%, where it was late Thursday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.
Germany’s DAX returned 0.9%, and South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.8% for two of the world’s bigger gains.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.1% after data showed household spending in Japan fell 3.0% in October from a year earlier. It was the sharpest drop since January 2024. Japanese markets have been shaky recently after the Bank of Japan hinted that hikes to interest rates may be coming.
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AP Writer Teresa Cerojano contributed.