NEW YORK — Wall Street finished an uncertain session mixed yesterday, encouraged by a drop in oil prices but worried about disappointing earnings from Time Warner Inc. The Standard&Poor's 500 index inched upward and reached a four-year high for the fourth time in six sessions.

One day after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite index broke through their June 2001 levels, investors appeared willing to wait for better news. With the Labor Department's jobs report due tomorrow and the Federal Reserve's latest decision on interest rates Tuesday, investors were considered unlikely to bid stocks much higher in the meantime.

"I think this market is just going to have to grind higher, little by little, and probably sell off a little here and there, at least until the Fed meeting," said Scott Wren, equity strategist for A.G. Edwards & Sons.

While Time Warner's worse-than-expected results pressured stocks, investors were relieved by the drop in oil futures, coming as the government's latest petroleum inventory report showed a slight rise in crude stockpiles. After reaching a new intraday record of $62.50 early in the session, a barrel of light crude settled at $60.86, down $1.03 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by nearly 8 to 7 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 2.08 billion shares, compared with 2.1 billion traded on Tuesday.