Wall Street Climbs Toward Record Highs Following Shanghai’s Biggest Decline Since Early COVID

Wall Street rises toward records after Shanghai’s worst drop since early COVID

New York – U.S. stocks are holding firm Wednesday following the latest scary swerves for markets in China.

The S&P 500 was up 0.5% in midday trading and on track to top its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 262 points, or 0.6%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

Leading the way were cruise-ship companies, whose customers stand to benefit from the surprisingly strong U.S. job market. Norwegian Cruise Line steamed 9.8% higher after analysts at Citi upgraded its stock and said data suggests growth for the cruise industry “has real legs” into 2025 and beyond. Carnival rose 7.3%, and Royal Caribbean Group gained 4.6%.

Helen of Troy, the company behind Hydro Flask water bottles and OXO kitchen tools, jumped 20.1% after reporting profit and revenue for the latest quarter that were better than analysts expected. That was even though the company said it’s still seeing customers feeling increasingly stretched amid lingering inflation.

They helped offset a 2.4% slump for Boeing. The aerospace giant withdrew a contract offer that would have given striking workers 30% raises over four years following a break down in labor talks.

Alphabet also kept gains for indexes in check after the heavyweight stock sank 1.9%. The U.S. Department of Justice is considering asking a federal judge to break up its Google business after its search engine was declared an illegal monopoly. A breakup is one of many possible remedies under review.

The movements along Wall Street were mostly calm, as Treasury yields and oil prices held relatively steady or eased after big jumps for both helped send the S&P 500 on Monday to its worst loss in a month.

The relative calm followed another manic day in China. After earlier surging on hopes for stimulus to prop up the world’s second-largest economy, Chinese stocks have slumped on disappointment that more isn’t on the way.

Stocks in Shanghai tumbled 6.6% for their worst loss since February 2020, when fears were rising about a virus emanating from Wuhan and other cities in China. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index fell 1.4% after dropping more than 9% the day before, which was its worst loss since the global financial crisis of 2008.

The Chinese government has set a target for about 5% annual growth this year, but the economy expanded at only a 4.7% pace in the last quarter and economists have been revising their estimates for the full year downward.

Moves announced by China in late September fueled a rally that has since fizzled. But analysts have pointed out that a news conference on Tuesday by China’s main planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, was unlikely to convey much information about government spending, which is the purview of the Finance Ministry.

That ministry is due to hold a briefing on Saturday that could provide further details on planned government outlays that so far have fallen short of what investors have been hoping for.

The Shanghai Composite is still up 9.5% for the year so far, while Hong Kong’s index is up 21.1%.

Indexes were more stable elsewhere around the world and rose 0.9% in Japan and 1% in Germany.

In the oil market, prices eased further. A barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1% to $76.42. after briefly topping $81 early this week. Benchmark U.S. crude fell 0.7% to $73.04 per barrel.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.04% from 4.01% late Tuesday.

Treasury yields have swung recently, first sharply downward through the spring and summer before turning upward in the last week or so.

They’ve followed traders’ expectations on what the Federal Reserve is likely to do with overnight interest rates. The central bank has just begun cutting interest rates from a two-decade high, as it widens its focus to include keeping the economy humming instead of just fighting high inflation

That caused the sharp easing of rates through the summer, but a suite of recent reports showing the U.S. economy remains stronger than expected has forced traders to downshift their forecasts for how much the Fed will ultimately cut rates by.

The Fed may give more color about how its thinking in the afternoon, when it releases the minutes from its policy meeting in September.

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AP Writers Zimo Zhong and Matt Ott contributed.

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