US stocks surged Wednesday after President Donald Trump called for a two-week suspension in hostilities with Iran, and Tehran said it would stop its operations if attacks on it were halted. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 2.3%, or more than 1,000 points, as traders rushed back into shares and out of oil.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that he agreed “to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks” and called it “a double sided CEASEFIRE!” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz would be possible for two weeks through coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces if the attacks stopped. Some ships transited the 21-mile-wide waterway after the announcement, a sign that markets were already treating the easing of tensions as real.
The S&P 500 soared 2.1% and the Nasdaq Composite vaulted 2.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 were all up more than 2.5% at one point and back above their 200-day moving averages. Brent crude futures fell over 16% to just above $91, and West Texas Intermediate crude dropped almost 18% to about $93. The move also pushed the Dow Jones Transportation Average up 4% to its first intraday record high since February.
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The rally was not limited to the biggest names. Delta Air Lines jumped after reporting first-quarter earnings that beat expectations, while Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Broadcom rose around 3%. Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Tesla were also higher, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index and the iShares Semiconductor ETF reached their first intraday record highs since February. Diamondback Energy was the biggest laggard in Wednesday’s session.
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Oil’s drop strengthened bets that the Federal Reserve could resume interest rate cuts later this year, even as minutes from the central bank’s March meeting were due to be released Wednesday. For now, the market’s message was blunt: the ceasefire talk changed the day, and it changed it fast.
