The US stock market hit a record Wednesday after adding to its two-week rally built on hopes the war with Iran won't create a worst-case scenario for the global economy.
- The S&P 500 rose 55.57 points, or 0.8%, to 7,022.95 and eclipsed its prior all-time high set in January.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 72 points, or 0.1%, to 48,463.72.
- The Nasdaq composite rose 376.93 points, or 1.6%, to 24,016.02.
After falling nearly 10% below its record in late March, a drop steep enough that Wall Street calls it a "correction," the index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts has since roared more than 10% higher, the
AP reports. Stocks could, however, easily get back to falling if those expectations get undercut, which has happened before in the war.
Oil prices drifted up and down Wednesday and showed that caution remains in financial markets. Stock indexes around the world also made only modest movements following their big gains in recent week. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, added 0.1% to settle at $94.93. That's still well above its roughly $70 price from before the war, though it's down from its $119 peak when worries about the fighting have been at their heights.
- But if US-Iran talks do happen and if they are successful, the war could end up being just a temporary setback for the global economy instead of a new normal of very high oil prices and inflation. And that in turn could allow investors to return their attention to what matters most for stock prices: money.
Bank of America rose 1.8% after saying it made $8.6 billion in profit during the first three months of the year, more than analysts expected. CEO Brian Moynihan also said the bank saw signs of a "resilient American economy," including solid spending by US consumers. Morgan Stanley jumped 4.5% after the investment bank likewise delivered a better-than-expected quarter of results. Companies hurt earlier in the year by worries about artificial-intelligence technology also rose to recover more of their losses for 2026. ServiceNow climbed 7.3%, Oracle rose 4.2%, and Ares Management gained 5.9% for some of Wednesday's bigger gains in the S&P 500.
The stock price of Allbirds surged 582% to nearly $17 after the company said it's shifting gears and moving into the AI compute infrastructure industry, while changing its name to NewBird AI. The Allbirds name will stay with the shoe brand that the company has already agreed to sell to American Exchange Group. Nike rose 2.8% after CEO Elliott Hill and Tim Cook—a Nike director and the CEO of Apple—disclosed that they purchased a combined 48,000 shares of the athletic shoe maker at a cost of about $1 million each. Nike shares are still down nearly 29% this year. On the losing end of Wall Street was Live Nation Entertainment. It fell 6.3% after a jury found the concert giant and its Ticketmaster subsidiary had a harmful monopoly over big concert venues.
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