U.S. stocks hold steady near records as Asian markets experience wild swings, with Japan tumbling and China soaring.

Crude prices are jumping Thursday on worries that worsening tensions in the Middle East could disrupt the global flow of oil, while U.S. stocks pull back further from their records. The S&P 500 was edging down by 0.

That could be an encouraging signal for the more comprehensive report on the U.S. job market due to arrive Friday from the U.S. government. The dominant question hanging over Wall Street has been whether the job market can keep holding up after the Federal Reserve earlier kept interest rates at a two-decade high.

Markets in the U.S. kept sliding from their record highs, closing down Thursday on continued worries that escalating tensions in the Middle East could impact the global energy supply. Europe, too, was down for the same reasons,