Trump Lifts Dow Today 44 Points on Iran Peace Hopes
dow today edged up 44 points in early Tuesday trading as U.S. stocks rose after the Memorial Day holiday, with investors leaning on hopes that Iran negotiations were moving forward. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq composite were all near record territory as oil and equities moved on the same news flow.
Trump's Iran Talks Drive Stocks
44 points was the Dow's early gain after Donald Trump said negotiations were "proceeding nicely" with Iran on ending their war. The S&P 500 rose 0.6 per cent and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.9 per cent, a run that kept all three major U.S. stock indexes at or near all-time highs.
0.4 per cent was Friday's gain for the S&P 500, while the Dow industrials climbed 0.6 per cent and the Nasdaq composite added 0.2 per cent before the holiday closure on Monday. Tuesday's opening move showed U.S. traders catching up to a weekend and Monday flow that had already pushed overseas markets higher on the same Iran headlines.
Oil Prices Split On Iran Risk
3.03 U.S. dollars was Brent crude's jump to 96.45 U.S. dollars a barrel, while benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 3.67 U.S. dollars to 92.97 U.S. dollars a barrel. The split move tracked the market's effort to price a possible easing of Middle East supply risk without waiting for a final settlement.
Stephen Innes said, "Markets are behaving as though a full Iran breakthrough already exists, even though the hardest parts of the negotiation remain unresolved" and added, "Washington continues to signal optimism, while Tehran insists no agreement is imminent." That gap between pricing and diplomacy kept traders from treating Tuesday's rally as a settled outcome.
Asia Stocks Follow The Same Signal
2.6 per cent was the gain for South Korea's Kospi, which jumped to 8,047.51 in Asian trading, while Tokyo's Nikkei 225 lost 0.3 per cent to 64,996.09. The mixed session showed how one set of Iran headlines can lift risk assets in one market and leave another side of the region moving the other way.
Monday's U.S. military strikes in southern Iran added another layer to the trade, because the same news that lifted hopes for a deal also included "self-defense" strikes on missile launch sites and boats placing mines. The military said the action was taken "to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces," leaving traders to parse diplomacy and escalation at the same time.
For investors, the immediate read is narrower than the headline suggests: stocks are pricing a better chance of progress, but the move still depends on whether the talks keep advancing beyond the optimistic language from Washington and the military pressure on the ground.
