Stocks Rise, Oil Prices Hold Steady    08/05 09:51

   Stocks rose in morning trading on Wall Street Wednesday and added to their 
records set a day earlier, while oil prices held steady.

   NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks rose in morning trading on Wall Street Wednesday and 
added to their records set a day earlier, while oil prices held steady.

   The S&P 500 climbed 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 487 points, 
or 0.9%, as of 9:53 a.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.3%.

   The S&P 500 and the Dow both set records on Tuesday, while the Nasdaq is 
less than 2% from its record. Every major index has been surging this week, 
giving August a strong start.

   The market is leaping as companies head into the closing stretch of their 
latest round of earnings reports with sharp overall gains. Three-quarters of 
the companies within the S&P 500 have reported results so far and Wall Street 
expects profit growth of 50% when they are all finished.

   The Walt Disney Co. is the latest to report strong financial results for its 
latest quarter. Disney rose 3.2% after easily beating Wall Street's profit 
forecasts, helped by a $1 billion box office haul from "Toy Story 5" and theme 
park revenue.

   Booking Holdings jumped 5.5% after reporting that strong travel demand drove 
profit and revenue growth during its most recent quarter.

   SpaceX fell 10.7%, despite on late Tuesday reporting a smaller loss than 
Wall Street expected in its first quarterly report as a public company. The 
company did help give semiconductor giant Nvidia a 3.9% boost after announcing 
it would exclusively use that company's computer chips for its artificial 
intelligence technology.

   Strong corporate profits and expectations for more growth ahead have been 
steering stocks higher, despite worries about high inflation.

   Uncertainty about the direction of the U.S. war with Iran continues hanging 
over the market. President Donald Trump said a deal to reopen the Strait of 
Hormuz could come as early as Wednesday. But there have been many stops and 
starts during the five-month old conflict that has stifled the global supply of 
oil and rattled energy markets.

   The price of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.1% to $79.41 a 
barrel.

   Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 
10-year Treasury rose to 4.64% from 4.63% late Tuesday.

   Markets in Asia rose. Benchmarks jumped more than 3% in Tokyo and Seoul as 
shares in computer chipmakers and other AI-related companies advanced. European 
markets also gained ground.

   ___

   Associated Press writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Mayuko Ono contributed to 
this report.

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