After a brief opening bounce, small-cap stocks are down slightly from Wednesday, but have been mostly steady in Thursday’s session. At 12:03 p.m. ET, the Russell 2000 (NYSE:IWM) was down 0.02, or 0.17%, at 716.04.

After skyrocketing crude oil sent stocks earthward during Wednesday’s action, sturdy results from Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) and Costco (Nasdaq:COST) offered early encouragement to traders. In the midday session, Wal-Mart is up 1.3% while Costco is down 0.1%. Also supporting bullish sentiments was footwear maker Crocs Inc.’s (Nasdaq:CROX) offered a solid outlook for the remainder of the year. CROX is up more than 16% shortly before noon.

Soaring crude oil futures eased somewhat to $122.53 a barrel after touching a record-high of $123.93. The dollar is stronger against the euro at $1.5395 after . . .

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