Falling oil prices help calm worries about inflation, and Wall Street rallies

A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, July 30, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are rallying to the edge of their all-time high on Monday after easing oil prices helped calm Wall Street’s worries that inflation could get even worse. The S&P 500 jumped 1.5% and is just 0.1% below its record set earlier this summer. It’s coming off a wild July , where it swung up and down as oil prices shot higher because of the war with Iran and other worries. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 649 points, or 1.2%, as of 2:30 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.2% higher.

Missing media or need the complete publisher report? Open AP News

Scoop News DeskNew York · Published Monday, August 3, 2026 at 6:01 PM UTCUpdated Monday, August 3, 2026 at 8:04 PM UTC

Scoop News reporting summary

The text below was supplied by the Scoop Newsroom app. Third-party reporting is attributed in the source panel.

Companies in the S&P 500 are on track to deliver earnings per share for the spring that are 47% higher than a year before, according to FactSet, with more than half of the companies in the index having already reported. The latest acquiescence by Trump helped to ease worries about the global flow of crude, and Treasury yields correspondingly fell in the bond market. U.S. regulators certified its new 737 MAX-7 planes, clearing it for commercial service, following years of work to provide pilots with clearer information and warnings, along with other improvements.