Helping to support the fervor has been strong profit reports from Entergy and other big U.S. businesses. Companies in the S&P 500 are on track to deliver nearly 17% growth in their earnings per share for the final three months of 2024, compared with a year earlier. That would be the best growth since 2021, according to FactSet.

U.S. stock indexes are wavering on Wall Street Wednesday. The S&P 500 was mostly unchanged, a day after setting an all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 122 points, or 0.3%, as of 12:18 p.