Stocks add a bit to their records on Wall Street

Wall Street notched more milestones Thursday after gains in technology stocks helped push the market to another all-time high.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3%, lifting the benchmark index to its second record high in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average reversed an early slide and gained 0.2%, enough to move past its record high set last Friday.

The Nasdaq composite closed 0.5% higher, finishing just short of its all-time high set two weeks ago.

About 55% of the companies in the benchmark S&P 500 closed lower, but gains in the technology and communication services sectors offset losses elsewhere in the market. Broadcom rose 2.8%, Amazon added 1.1% and Google parent Alphabet finished 2% higher.

“We’re seeing a continuation of a theme that has been in place really all year long, and that is communication services, information technology, really the areas that are surrounding this incredible capital expenditure cycle, have been the primary beneficiaries,” said Bill Northey, senior investment director at U.S. Bank Asset Management.

Heading into the final day of trading in August, the S&P 500 and Dow were on pace for their fourth straight monthly gain, while the Nasdaq was closing in on its fifth.

The market's latest gains came as traders pored over a mixed batch of earnings reports from big U.S. companies and new reports on the job market and U.S. economy.

Tech giant Nvidia fell 0.8% a day after reporting quarterly earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street analysts’ forecasts, though the company noted that sales of its artificial intelligence chipsets rose at a slower pace than analysts anticipated.

Investors consider Nvidia a barometer for the strength of the boom in artificial intelligence because the company makes most of the chips that power the technology. Its heavy weighting also gives Nvidia outsized influence as a bellwether for the broader market.

Shares in several retailers fell following their latest quarterly results.

Best Buy dropped 3.7% after the consumer electronics chain's second-quarter snapshot was overshadowed by an outlook clouded due to the tariffs the U.S. is imposing on trading partners.

Despite also posting better-than-expected quarterly results, Urban Outfitters slid 10.7% after the retailer warned that it expects tariffs will increase pressure on its gross margins in the second half of the year.

Dick’s Sporting Goods fell 4.8% despite reporting second-quarter results that beat analysts' expectations.

Victoria’s Secret & Co. gave up an early gain and closed 0.5% lower.

Burlington Stores bucked the trend. The retail chain climbed 5.3% after its latest earnings topped analysts’ estimates.

Elsewhere in the market, Spam maker Hormel sank 13.1% for the biggest decline among S&P 500 companies after its earnings fell short of Wall Street’s forecasts and the company cut its outlook for the year.

Traders also had their eye on new government reports on the job market and economy.

The Labor Department reported that applications for unemployment benefits fell last week, the latest sign that employers are holding onto their workers even as the economy has slowed.

The most recent government data suggests hiring has slowed sharply since this spring.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported that U.S. gross domestic product —- the nation’s output of goods and services — grew at a 3.3% annual pace in the April-June quarter after shrinking 0.5% in the first three months of this year due to the fallout from the Trump administration’s trade wars.

“The GDP print reinforces the fact that this continues to be an economy, domestically, that is continuing to show a great deal of resilience in terms of producing economic growth,” Northey said.

Still, the sluggishness in the job market is a key reason that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled last week that the central bank may cut its key interest rate at its meeting next month.

Lower rates can boost investment prices and the economy by making it cheaper for U.S. households and businesses to borrow, but they risk worsening inflation.

Traders are still betting the Fed will trim its benchmark interest rate at its next meeting in September. Traders see an 85.3% chance that the central bank will cut the rate by a quarter of a percentage point, according to data from CME Group.

Friday will bring another update on inflation: the U.S. personal consumption expenditures index. Economists expect it to show that inflation remained at about 2.6% in July, compared with a year ago. Businesses have been warning investors and consumers about higher costs and prices because of tariffs.

Treasury yields were mixed in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.21% from 4.24% late Wednesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Federal Reserve action, rose to 3.63% from 3.62%.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 20.46 points to 6,501.86. The Dow added 71.67 points to 45,636.90, and the Nasdaq gained 115.02 points to close at 21,705.16.

European and Asian markets closed mixed.

Options trader Chris Dattolo, center, works with colleagues on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person pauses in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person, seen through a car window. walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — For several weeks, international journalists and camera crews have been scurrying up to people in Greenland's capital to ask them for their thoughts on the twists and turns of a political crisis that has turned the Arctic island into a geopolitical hot spot.

President Donald Trump insists he wants to control Greenland but Greenlanders say it is not for sale. The island is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark and the prime minister of that country has warned that if the U.S. tries to take Greenland by force, it could potentially spell the end of NATO.

Greenlanders walking along the small central shopping street of the capital Nuuk have a hard time avoiding the signs that the island is near the top of the Western news agenda.

Scores of journalists have arrived from outlets including The Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera as well as from Scandinavian countries and Japan.

They film Nuuk's multicolored houses, the snowcapped hills and the freezing fjords where locals go out in small boats to hunt seals and fish. But they must try to cram their filming into about five hours of daylight — the island is in the far north and the sun rises after 11 a.m. and sets around 4 p.m.

Along the quiet shopping street, journalists stand every few meters (feet), approaching locals for their thoughts, doing live broadcasts or recording stand-ups.

Local politicians and community leaders say they are overwhelmed with interview requests.

Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament, called the media attention “round two,” referring to an earlier burst of global interest following Trump's first statements in 2025 that he wanted to control Greenland.

Trump has argued repeatedly that the U.S. needs control of Greenland for its national security. He has sought to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland, which holds vast untapped reserves of critical minerals.

Berthelsen said he has done multiple interviews a day for two weeks.

“I'm getting a bit used to it,” he said.

Greenland's population is around 57,000 people —- about 20,000 of whom live in Nuuk.

“We’re very few people and people tend to get tired when more and more journalists ask the same questions again and again,” Berthelsen said.

Nuuk is so small that the same business owners are approached repeatedly by different news organizations — sometimes doing up to 14 interviews a day.

Locals who spoke to the AP said they want the world to know that it's up to Greenlanders to decide their own future and suggested they are perplexed at Trump's desire to control the island.

“It’s just weird how obsessed he is with Greenland,” said Maya Martinsen, 21.

She said Trump is “basically lying about what he wants out of Greenland,” and is using the pretext of boosting American security as a way to try to take control of “the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched.”

The Americans, Martinsen said, “only see what they can get out of Greenland and not what it actually is.”

To Greenlanders, she said, “it's home.”

“It has beautiful nature and lovely people. It’s just home to me. I think the Americans just see some kind of business trade.”

Kwiyeon Ha contributed to this report.

A journalist films in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)

An AP journalist films people sitting by the sea in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)

A journalist conducts an interview in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)