The main Wall Street indices closed this Wednesday with gains of nearly 3% following a rebound session attributed to a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran, conditional on Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz. At the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.85% to 47,909 points; the S&P 500 advanced 2.51% to 6,782 units, and the Nasdaq gained 2.80% to 22,634 points amid a notable drop in volatility. The market opened with gains after U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, hours before his deadline to Iran expired, accepted the pause in the conflict, which generated optimism and today particularly affected the price of oil. WTI Texas oil futures recorded their largest daily drop since 2020, of over 16%, to $94.41, despite conflicting reports from both countries on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Nevertheless, the stock markets remained in the green and seemed to react with rebounds to a message Trump posted on his social media today, in which he spoke of “cooperation” with Iran, a “very productive regime change,” and “elimination of nuclear remnants.” By sector, the biggest gains were for industrial companies (3.75%), communications (3.4%), and basic materials (3.4%), while the only sector in the red was energy (-3.66%). In the corporate world, Meta surged 6.5% after unveiling a new artificial intelligence (AI) model designed to integrate its technology into the company's application and social media ecosystem. Iran said today it had disrupted the navigation of oil tankers through the strait in response to the massive surprise bombings Israel launched today against Lebanon, according to reports from Fars agency, linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt called the reports “false” and stated that they had observed “a surge in traffic in the strait.” “What is being observed, in the reports and physical costs, is not a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz but rather a formalization of existing conditions, where passage still depends on coordination with Iranian armed forces and is subject to technical limitations,” opined analyst Janic Shah of Rystad Energy in a note. In other markets, at the close of Wall Street, the yield on the 10-year U.S. bond fell to 4.305%; gold rose to $4,748 an ounce, the euro appreciated and traded at $1.662, and bitcoin rose nearly 4% to $71,444.
