NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks held firmer Wednesday after Morgan Stanley, United Airlines and other major companies delivered better-than-expected earnings reports.

A day later, the S&P 500 was largely unchanged in early trading is slipping from its all-time high due to falling energy and technology stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 49 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.1% lower.

Morgan Stanley rose 5.5% after reporting higher profit than analysts expected for its latest quarter. CEO Ted Pick said the investment bank had a “constructive environment” in its operations around the world. And with stock prices at near record levels, the company is managing even more money for its clients.

United Airlines flew 5.4% higher after reporting a milder decline in summer profit than expected and announced a plan to return up to $1.5 billion to its shareholders by buying back their shares. JB Hunt Transport Services rose 4.5% after the freight company delivered better-than-expected results.

They helped offset a 1.6% decline for Omnicom. The advertising and communications company also exceeded analysts’ profit forecasts in the last quarter, but only just.

Energy stocks held steady a day after suffering some of the market’s worst losses, including a 0.5% rise for Exxon Mobil. They followed the price of oil. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.1% to recoup some of its loss of more than 4% on Tuesday.

Brent has fallen back to below $75 a barrel from over $80 last week. An important reason is fading fears that Israel will attack Iranian oil facilities as part of its retaliation against Iran Missile attack earlier this month. Iran is a major crude oil producer and a strike could affect its exports to China and elsewhere.

U.S. technology stocks also held up a day better after a warning from ASML, a Dutch chip industry supplier, rattled the high-flying industry.

ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet said Tuesday that artificial intelligence continues to offer great upside potential, but “other market segments are taking longer to recover.” That led to a 3.5% decline at Broadcom and 4.7 on Tuesday % at Nvidia. A day later, both are up at least 0.5%.

Still, Wednesday was the first opportunity for Asian stock markets to feel the impact of the ASML warning, and chip companies there tumbled.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.8%, while chipmaker Tokyo Electron fell 9.2% and Lasertec Corp., a maker of chip inspection equipment, fell 13.4%.

In the rest of Asia and Europe, stock indices were different. In London, the FTSE 100 rose 0.9% after a government report Inflation in the UK fell to its lowest level in more than three years in September. This reinforced expectations that the Bank of England will cut interest rates at its next monetary policy meeting.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve has already done this started to lower interest rates After years of keeping them high in the hope of slowing the economy enough to bring it to a halt high inflation.

As inflation finally appears to be nearing the Fed’s 2 percent target, the central bank is broadening its focus on inflation keep the economy going. Current reports show this The US economy remains stronger than expected have raised optimism that the Fed can pull off a perfect landing and bring inflation down to 2% without triggering a recession that many had thought was necessary.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.00% from 4.03% late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury yield, more in line with expectations for Fed action, fell to 3.92% from 3.95%.

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AP business reporters Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.