S&P 500, Nasdaq hit record highs
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed at fresh record highs as investors continued to push equities higher on expectations that the war involving Iran may not drag on much longer, extending a rally that has already erased earlier conflict-related losses.
The broad market index rose 0.80% to finish at 7,022.95, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.59% to close at 24,016.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, slipped 72.27 points, or 0.15%, ending the session at 48,463.72. The latest gains marked another milestone for the market, with the Nasdaq posting its 11th straight day of advances and the S&P 500 recording its 10th positive close in the past 11 sessions.
The rally has been driven in large part by growing hopes that tensions between the United States and Iran may ease through negotiations, reducing fears of prolonged disruption to global trade and energy markets. The S&P 500, which had already recovered its losses tied to the conflict earlier in the week, is now up 3% week to date. The Nasdaq has added nearly 5% over the same period, while the Dow has gained more than 1%.
“The setup coming into [the war] was that market participants had de-risked to a degree in anticipation that maybe things might get bad, and then as that seems like it’s maybe less of a likelihood, they’re needing to buy,” said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments. “People don’t want to miss out on an up market.”
Investor sentiment was also buoyed by comments from President Donald Trump, who said in an interview with Fox Business that the Iran war is “very close to over” and again claimed that Iran wants to “make a deal very badly.” A White House official also told CNBC that a second round of negotiations between Washington and Tehran is under discussion, although nothing has been formally scheduled.
“Is there going to be a deal that will allow the Strait of Hormuz to open up and there to be less rhetoric on stopping the flow of goods? The market seems to be saying that it thinks there will be,” Martin said.
Technology stocks once again helped lead the market higher, with Broadcom among the session’s standout performers. Shares of the chipmaker rose 4% after Meta Platforms extended its partnership with Broadcom to deploy custom chips using the company’s technology.
At the same time, the pace of the Nasdaq’s recent rally has drawn attention from market watchers. According to technical data cited during the session, the Nasdaq Composite has surged from oversold to overbought territory in just 11 trading days, the fastest reversal of that kind since records beginning in the early 1980s. The index’s relative strength index, or RSI, rose above 70 after being below 30 on March 30. RSI is a commonly used technical measure of the speed and intensity of recent price moves.
The Nasdaq is now up 15% over that 11-day stretch, marking its first winning streak of that length since November 2021 and its strongest 15-day run since March 2022. While the speed of the move may raise questions about how sustainable the rally is, investors for now appear focused on the possibility that geopolitical tensions may continue to cool, giving stocks room to climb further.
