Wall Street flirts with its all-time high

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NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is flirting with its all-time high on Friday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.2% and was on track earlier in the day to squeak past its record closing level, which was set in October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 82 points, or 0.2%, as of 12:50 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

If the S&P 500 finishes the day at a record, it would mark the latest time the U.S. stock market has powered past what appeared to be a debilitating set of worries. Most recently, those concerns centered on what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates, whether too many dollars are flowing into artificial-intelligence technology and if sharp drops for cryptocurrencies would bleed over into other markets.

Renewed hopes for a cut to interest rates by the Fed at its meeting next week helped stocks recover those losses, which included some of their worst days since their sell-off during April. So did a continuing parade of companies saying they’re making bigger profits than analysts had expected.

Ulta Beauty helped lead the market on Friday and jumped 13.5% after the retailer reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. CEO Kecia Steelman said its customers are broadly feeling pressure, but Ulta saw growth across its categories, particularly in e-commerce. It raised its forecast for revenue over the full year.

Another encouraging signal for the holiday shopping season came from Victoria’s Secret & Co. It delivered a milder loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected, and it likewise raised its forecast for sales over the full year. Its stock rallied 12.1%.

Warner Bros. Discovery was also strong and rose 1.9%. Netflix said it would buy Warner Bros. for $72 billion in cash and stock following its pending split from Discovery Global.

The deal for the company behind HBO Max, “Casablanca” and “Harry Potter” is not a sure thing, though. It could raise fears at the U.S. government about too much industry power residing at Netflix. Shares of Netflix initially fell more than 5% after the deal was announced, then briefly erased all of the loss before falling again, by 3.4%.