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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., August 4, 2026.
The S&P 500 rose to a new all-time intraday record on Wednesday, building on its big rally in recent days, as traders pored through the latest batch of strong corporate earnings reports and grew hopeful that the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened in the near term.
The broad market index gained 0.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 365 points, or 0.7%. The 30-stock index also scored a fresh all-time high. The three indexes are tracking for their best five-day performance since April 2025.
The moves come after markets jumped in the prior session, with the S&P 500 closing above 7,700 for the first time and the Dow jumping more than 900 points for another record close. Over the past week, the S&P 500 has garnered a gain of more than 6%, while the Dow and Nasdaq have increased more than 5% and more than 9%, respectively.
Wednesday's new record highs were supported by Dow member Disney , which rose more than 2% on better-than-expected earnings for its fiscal third quarter, as well as Eli Lilly . Shares of the pharmaceutical giant moved higher by 7% after its second-quarter earnings and revenue surpassed estimates.
The two reports add to an already strong earnings season so far, which has seen more than 84% of S&P 500 companies beat expectations, per FactSet.
Meanwhile, oil prices remained stable Wednesday after falling Tuesday, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the U.S. and Iran could be closing in on a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. West Texas Intermediate futures for September delivery were little changed at around $75 per barrel. Brent crude futures for October delivery, the international benchmark, were up 1% at about $80 a barrel.
Investors shook off a 4% drop in shares of chip giant Advanced Micro Devices , which posted adjusted earnings that only came in slightly ahead of the Street's estimates.
SpaceX shares plunged 12% after the rocket company released its first quarterly report since going public in June. Elon Musk's space firm said its capital expenditures jumped sixfold to $18.4 billion in the second quarter. This figure was ahead of analyst expectations, with the majority of the spending going towards AI.
However, Nvidia shares popped 4% after Musk said that SpaceX would only use Nvidia processors when building its artificial intelligence computing infrastructure in the future. In SpaceX's earnings call, he said Nvidia has "the best AI computer," before adding, "We're exclusive to Nvidia."
Traders also looked past a weak ADP jobs report for July, which showed private sector hiring increase by 44,000 on the month. That was below the 95,000 seen in June and the 75,000 Dow Jones forecast.
