Stocks Near Record Highs as Wall Street Awaits Earnings Reports

Stocks on Wall Street continued to climb on Wednesday, hovering near record highs set the previous day. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 455 points, or 0.8%, by mid-day.

The Nasdaq composite, however, fell 0.2%. This comes after a strong start to August, with every major index surging this week.

Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide, attributed the surge in part to companies' sharp overall gains during their latest round of earnings reports. Three-quarters of the S&P 500 have reported results so far, and Wall Street expects profit growth of 50% when all are finished.

Nvidia's announcement that it will exclusively use its chips for SpaceX's artificial intelligence technology gave the semiconductor giant a 3.6% boost, while Advanced Micro Devices fell 6.5%. Elon Musk's SpaceX itself fell 8.7%, despite reporting a smaller loss than expected in its first quarterly report as a public company.

The price of Brent crude, the international standard, held steady at $79.03 a barrel. Oil prices have been volatile for months, driven by concerns over the impact of inflation and the ongoing conflict with Iran.