Stocks Hold Near Peak as Busy Earnings Week Starts: Markets Wrap
(Bloomberg) — Stocks held near record highs at the start of a week that will feature a raft of megacap earnings and central bank decisions, with traders weighing conflicting signs about progress toward ending the Iran war.
Following an advance that put the S&P 500 on pace for its best month since the depths of the pandemic, the gauge fluctuated. Brent crude topped $108. While a ceasefire has mostly held since early April, shipping blockades have cut daily transits through the Strait of Hormuz to near zero, prolonging the supply disruption that has jolted markets around the world.
President Donald Trump has met with his national security team and a proposal from Iran was being discussed, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Earlier, Axios reported Tehran had signaled it might accept an interim deal whereby it reopens Hormuz in exchange for Washington ending its blockade of ports.
Without much clarity on the geopolitical front, equity traders geared up for results from a handful of technology giants.
Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. are set to report Wednesday, followed by Apple Inc. a day later. Those firms are worth nearly $16 trillion combined, representing a quarter of the S&P 500’s market capitalization.
“With headlines on Iran continuing to provide mixed messages, our sense is that investors will shift their focus toward individual company results,” said Chris Senyek at Wolfe Research. “Along this vein, this week brings a ‘firehose’ of critical market data.”
The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and peers in Japan, the UK and Canada are all scheduled to set interest rates this week, together deciding monetary policy for about half of the world’s economy.
While investors expect them to leave rates unchanged, markets will be on alert for signs officials, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell and ECB President Christine Lagarde, are worried about the inflation threat posed by the disruption to oil supply stemming from the war.
“The tone of the press conference will emphasize the prudence of the ongoing wait-and-see stance, although we suspect that investors are nearing the point at which one might expect the Fed to have a stronger conviction take on the fallout from the energy shock – even if that is unlikely to be communicated in its entirety,” said Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets.
Corporate Highlights:
President Donald Trump called on Walt Disney Co.’s ABC to immediately fire late night host Jimmy Kimmel after what he called a “despicable call to violence” on an April 23 broadcast. Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI have agreed to drop the software giant’s exclusive right to sell the startup’s AI models, opening the door for the ChatGPT maker to pursue deals with cloud-computing rivals like Amazon.com Inc. Verizon Communications Inc. surprised analysts when it reported a gain of mobile subscribers, an early signal that new Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman’s strategy for recapturing market share is already paying off. Domino’s Pizza Inc. sank after the company revised its full-year outlook and reported a first quarter comparable sales miss. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. has agreed to acquire New York-listed women’s health-care company Organon & Co., expanding its global reach with one of the biggest outbound deals by an Indian company. United Airlines Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby confirmed he approached American Airlines Group Inc. and that talks have ended, laying out the virtues of a merger that he said could have strengthened corporate America and won approval from regulators. What Bloomberg strategists say…
“The lingering question for investors is whether all this spending on AI tech has produced tangible returns. The binary nature of this catalyst, which has singularly propelled equity gains this year, seems like an awfully shaky foundation for a sustainable stock rally.”
—Kristine Aquino, Macro Strategist, Markets Live. For the full analysis, click here.
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
The S&P 500 rose 0.1% as of 2 p.m. New York time The Nasdaq 100 was little changed The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% The MSCI World Index was little changed Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1% The euro was little changed at $1.1724 The British pound was little changed at $1.3540 The Japanese yen was unchanged at 159.38 per dollar Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin fell 2% to $76,704.73 Ether fell 3.2% to $2,287.14 Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced four basis points to 4.34% Germany’s 10-year yield advanced four basis points to 3.03% Britain’s 10-year yield advanced six basis points to 4.97% Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude rose 2.3% to $96.57 a barrel Spot gold fell 0.6% to $4,682.91 an ounce ©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
