APTOPIX Financial Markets Wall Street

Hour-to-hour swings for oil prices keep jerking financial markets around, and U.S. stocks are drifting higher following the latest reversal. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% Thursday and inched closer to its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 299 points, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.4%. All three indexes erased early drops following the latest 180-degree swing for oil prices. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil briefly climbed above $109 in the morning, threatening to worsen the world’s already high inflation, before it quickly erased all its gains in midday trading and then fell 2.1% to $102.81.