US stocks flirt with a record as profits keep piling up and oil prices ease

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is rising toward a record on Tuesday as big companies keep piling up profits and oil prices ease.The S&P 500 added 0.6% and is on track to top its all-time closing high set earlier in the summer. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 658 points, or 1.2%, from its own record set the day before, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% higher, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time.Despite worries about high inflation, the war in Iran and a possible bubble in stock prices because of euphoria around the boom in artificial-intelligence technology, Wall Street is nearing its latest apex because profits are booming for companies. That’s key because stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate earnings over the long term.Palantir Technologies helped lead the way and jumped 19.8% after CEO Alex Karp said its overall revenue leaped 93% in the spring from a year earlier in what he called an “otherworldly” quarter. Besides reporting a stronger profit for the latest qua