Stock market today: Wall Street sets more records after Shanghai's worst drop since early COVID

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks set records Wednesday after the latest wild swerves for Chinese stocks left few ripples in markets worldwide.

The S&P 500 rose 0.7% to top the all-time high it had set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 431 points, or 1%, to hit its own record, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.6%.

Leading the way were cruise-ship companies, whose customers stand to benefit from the surprisingly strong U.S. job market. Norwegian Cruise Line steamed 10.9% 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%, and Royal Caribbean Group gained 5.3%.

Helen of Troy, the company behind Hydro Flask water bottles and OXO kitchen tools, jumped 17.9% 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.

KinderCare Learning rose 8.9% in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange. It has over 2,400 early childhood education centers and before- and after-school sites across the country for kids aged between six weeks and 12 years.

They helped offset a 3.4% 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 the market’s gains in check after the heavyweight stock sank 1.5%. 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.

If a breakup were to happen, the question would become what happens with other Big Tech stocks like Amazon, Meta Platforms or Apple, and whether any would try to spin off business units before possibly being forcibly broken apart, according to JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG North America.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 40.91 points to 5,792.04. The Dow jumped 431.63 to 42,512.00, and the Nasdaq composite gained 108.70 to 18,291.62.

The relative calm on Wall Street 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 since 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 seen in 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.

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 on Wednesday 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 0.4% to settle at $73.24 after briefly topping $81 early this week. Benchmark U.S. crude fell 0.8% to $76.58 per barrel.

Earlier leaps for oil driven by worries about worsening tensions in the Middle East had helped drag the S&P 500 on Monday to its worst loss in a month.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.07% from 4.01% late Tuesday.

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

They’ve followed traders’ expectations for 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 recent reports have shown the U.S. economy remains stronger than expected. That in turn has forced traders to downshift forecasts for how much the Fed will ultimately cut rates by.

The Fed on Wednesday released the minutes from its last policy meeting, which included few surprises. It reiterated the Fed’s message from September, emphasizing that its larger-than-usual cut of half a percentage point was not necessarily a signal of big cuts in the future.

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AP Writers Zimo Zhong and Matt Ott contributed.