NYSE
The broad market index was up 0.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 22 points, or 0.1%. This week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have risen more than 3% and more than 5%, respectively, while the Dow has advanced more than 1%.
Stocks received a bump Thursday after President Donald Trump confirmed he spoke with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He added that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a to a 10-day ceasefire, which will begin at 5 p.m. ET.
Israel halting its attacks on Lebanon has been a key condition for Iran war negotiations beginning, the speaker of Iran’s parliament has said.
Trump had said in a prerecorded Fox Business interview that aired on Wednesday that the Iran war is “very close to over,” claiming that Tehran wants to “make a deal very badly.”
For Washington and Tehran, a second round of negotiations is under discussion, but nothing has been officially scheduled yet. That’s according to a White House official who asked not to be named to discuss the administration’s internal plans.
Stocks have risen in recent days on hopes for an eventual peace deal between the U.S. and Iran. The S&P 500 started off the week by wiping out all of its losses since the beginning of the Iran war.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq both hit key milestones on Wednesday, with the former closing above 7,000 for the first time and the latter seeing its first close above 24,000. That also marked the Nasdaq’s 11th consecutive day of gains — its longest win streak since Nov. 8, 2021.
But even if a U.S.-Iran peace deal were to come to fruition in the near term like investors anticipate, there could still be some market volatility approaching due to the war’s potential impact on the U.S. economy.
“We are going to have to weather a couple subpar quarters of GDP,” said Rob Williams, chief investment strategist at Sage Advisory. “Everyone’s kind of just been waiting for Iran to sort of work itself out, and that’ll be a big positive, but the economy is still [at] 2% growth. We’ll probably get a couple quarters under 2% here.”
“I don’t know if the markets are prepared for that,” he added.
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