NEW YORK — The U.S. stock market is flirting with its all-time high on Friday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% and was on track earlier in the day to squeak past its record closing level, which was set in October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 164 points, or 0.3%, as of 11 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

If the S&P 500 finishes the day at a record, it would mark the latest time the U.S. stock market has powered past what appeared to be a debilitating set of worries. Most recently, those concerns centered on what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates, whether too many dollars are flowing into artificial-intelligence technology and if sharp drops for cryptocurrencies would bleed over into other markets.

Renewed hopes for a cut to interest rates by th

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