The stock market is headed for its best quarterly performance in more than a decade when it closes today, the Associated Press reported.

Yesterday the Dow Jones industrial average rose nearly 91 points higher oil prices boosted energy, industrial and material stocks. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 8 points and the Nasdaq composite index increased 5 points.

The S&P 500 is up 16.2 percent since the start of the quarter, the best performance since 1998.

However, stocks wavered this morning on news that the Conference Board’s latest consumer confidence reading fell to 49.3 in June from a revised 54.8 reading in May. Analysts had expected little change in the index.

Meanwhile, investors in government debt have lost 4.4 percent so far this year, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. indexes, the biggest first-half decline since Merrill started the indexes in 1978, Bloomberg reported.

Yesterday, the yield on a 10-year Treasury note fell at one point to 3.45 percent, the lowest level since May 29, and was up one basis point, or 0.01 percent to 3.49 percent this morning.

The government is borrowing at record levels to fund stimulus spending and service deficits. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates the United States will borrow $3.25 trillion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, nearly four times the $892 billion borrowed in the prior 12 months

The Federal Reserve is scheduled to buy Treasuries due from May 2016 to May 2019 today and those maturing between August 2019 and February 2026 tomorrow as part of its plan to buy as much as $300 billion in government securities over six months to cap borrowing costs and help offset some of the record debt being sold.