Wall Street is hovering near its record peak on Tuesday amid a comparatively subdued session for global markets.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, leaving it 0.5% shy of the all-time high it notched last month.

As of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had shed 295 points, or 0.5%, while the Nasdaq composite was tacking on 0.3% to its own record.

Stocks had been higher in the morning, when the price for a barrel of Brent crude briefly dipped below $98.

But oil prices subsequently pared their losses, and Brent was most recently trading at $100.23 per barrel.

That marks a decline from the nearly $110 it reached last week, yet it remains considerably more expensive than the $72 it commanded before the war with Iran commenced.

It has been fluctuating in response to uncertainty regarding when the war will permit crude to flow freely once more from the Middle East to customers worldwide.

Wall Street is inching ever closer to record highs as oil prices continue to fall.

On Wall Street, AutoZone climbed 6% after the retailer reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts had anticipated, even though its revenue fell short.

CEO Phil Daniele said the auto parts seller had confronted “a difficult selling environment” during the first two months of the quarter, but that conditions improved thereafter, and “we feel we are well positioned for sales growth” in its forthcoming fiscal year.

At Thor Industries, a manufacturer of recreational vehicles, the prevailing sentiment was decidedly more subdued.

CEO Bob Martin remarked that costly fuel, elevated interest rates and persistently high inflation are placing a strain on its customers’ budgets, and that business “never reached the inflection point many in the industry expected” over the course of its latest fiscal year.

Its stock nevertheless climbed 3.7% after the company reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts had anticipated.

Such strong profit reports are a major reason the U.S. stock market has come close to its all-time high, even with high oil prices and worries that artificial-intelligence stocks may have risen too far.

Numerous corporations are on the verge of finalizing their accounts for the third quarter of the year, which concludes with September.

Moreover, analysts are projecting that companies within the S&P 500 will disclose an overall expansion of nearly 29% for the quarter relative to the same period a year prior, as reported by FactSet.

Should their assessment prove accurate, it would mark the index's third consecutive quarter of growth exceeding 25%.

Moreover, stock prices have a tendency to track corporate profits over the long term.

On Holding’s US-listed stock surged 10.7% after the Swiss sneaker and sportswear company unveiled its financial targets for the coming years.

It also sanctioned a plan to repurchase up to $1 billion of its shares through 2029.

Such buybacks channel cash directly to investors and enhance the company’s per-share performance.

Among the stocks that bore the brunt of losses on Wall Street were several in the oil and gas sector, which were adversely affected by the decline in crude prices.

ConocoPhillips dipped 0.5%.

Banks also fell, extending their weak run since the previous week, when the Federal Reserve raised the overnight interest rate it controls for the first time in three years.

When the gap between short-term and longer-term interest rates narrows, banks come under pressure because they profit from the difference.

JPMorgan Chase declined 3.8%, ranking among the most substantial drags on the S&P 500.

The gap between short- and long-term yields in the bond market showed little movement, as the 10-year Treasury yield edged up to 4.97% from 4.96% late Monday.

As with oil prices, it also remains far above where it was before the war with Iran began, when it was at 3.97%.

In stock markets overseas, indices edged upward throughout much of Europe and Asia.

London’s FTSE 100 proved an exception, slipping 0.3%.

Equities advanced 0.2% in Hong Kong and 0.1% in Shanghai after Alibaba unveiled new artificial intelligence chip technologies, among them what it claimed to be China’s most potent AI chip.

This development comes merely days before a meeting between Chinese and U.S. leaders, at which the contest for supremacy in AI technology is anticipated to figure prominently.