The S&P 500 closed at 7,041.28 Thursday — a third consecutive all-time high, up 0.26%. The Nasdaq settled at 24,102.70, extending its winning streak to 12 consecutive sessions — the longest run since July 2009, surpassing the previous 11-day mark set just yesterday. The Dow joined the party for the first time in several sessions, adding 0.24% to 48,578.72 as energy, materials, and real estate sectors finally provided broad participation. The 7,000 level that Piper Sandler identified as the critical floor is not just holding — it is receding in the rearview mirror. The S&P and Nasdaq have now risen 3.3% and 5.2% respectively this week alone.
The record close is not a US-only story. Japan’s Nikkei 225 hit its own all-time high Thursday at 59,518.34 — fully recovering all Iran war losses. China reported Q1 gross domestic product (GDP) of 5.0%, beating the 4.8% consensus. South Korea’s KOSPI reached 6,226.05, near its own record territory. The coordinated global rally, driven by ceasefire extension discussions and strong earnings, is the broadest multi-market advance since before the war began on February 28. Bloomberg reported Thursday that the US and Iran are now considering a two-week ceasefire extension before the current truce expires next week — the diplomatic development that gave the afternoon session its final push higher.
After the close, Netflix delivered the session’s cold water. Revenue and earnings beat, but Q2 guidance disappointed and co-founder Reed Hastings announced he will depart the board in June after 29 years. The stock fell 10% in after-hours trading. The ATH closes are real and historic. But the session’s two structural headwinds — Netflix’s Q2 miss and the Philly Fed’s prices-paid surge to 59.3 — are reminders that the assumptions underneath the records are not yet resolved.
| Asset | Close | Change | % Chg | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,041.28 | +18.33 | +0.26% | Third consecutive all-time high. Both intraday and closing records. 7,000 floor holding convincingly. Energy, materials, real estate led — broader participation than Wednesday. |
| Nasdaq | 24,102.70 | +86.68 | +0.36% | 12th consecutive positive session — longest win streak since July 2009. Record close. Nasdaq-100 also set an intraday ATH. Software recovery names (ServiceNow, Oracle, Palo Alto) contributing. |
| Dow Jones | 48,578.72 | +115.00 | +0.24% | Finally green and meaningfully so. Energy, materials and Dow-heavy industrials contributed. Sherwin-Williams +2.5%, Verizon +1.8%, Chevron +1.6% led. Near pre-war levels. Boeing, Apple, Amazon weighed. |
| Russell 2000 | 2,719.60 | +0.22 | +0.22% | Small caps modestly positive. Still lagging large-cap AI-driven rally but participating. Week-to-date gains beginning to broaden below the megacap layer. |
| VIX | ~17.74 | −0.46 | −2.50% | Continuing to fall. Pre-war lows. Fear fully unwound across 12 Nasdaq sessions. The options market is pricing continued calm — a bet on ceasefire extension and no FOMC shock in May. |
| WTI Crude | ~$91.50 | −$0.20 | −0.22% | Essentially flat. Ceasefire extension news gave brief relief rally before fading. Hormuz not formally open; Saudi pipeline capacity still impaired. $91 floor = residual war premium. |
| Gold | ~$4,829 | +$0.10 | Flat | Holding near recent levels. Risk-on rotation and VIX decline normally pressure gold, but geopolitical uncertainty keeping a floor. Still +45%+ year-over-year. |
| 10Y Treasury | 4.313% | +3.4bps | — | Slight yield rise. Philly Fed prices-paid surge (59.3) added inflation premium. Warsh confirmation hearing now scheduled — term premium building into the 10Y as markets price a more hawkish successor. |
| Bitcoin | ~$74,437 | Flat | — | Holding near recent highs. ETF inflows $186M Thursday (second straight day). Morgan Stanley MSBT above $100M in six trading days. Institutional bid structurally intact. |
Thursday’s session delivered something Wednesday’s dual ATH did not: broader participation. The Dow added 0.24% as energy, materials and real estate sectors contributed alongside the usual tech leadership. Schwab’s Nathan Peterson called for sideways consolidation after the RSI cross — instead the market found buyers. The 7,000 level is not merely holding; it is building a new base. That is the sustained rally confirmation that the ATH structure needed to be credible rather than narrow.
The session’s internal structure was the healthiest of the week. Energy and materials leading alongside technology means the market is pricing both war-end (energy relief) and AI cycle continuation (tech) simultaneously — the ideal macro backdrop for equities. The ceasefire extension report from Bloomberg in the afternoon gave the session its final push. Both the S&P and Nasdaq notched new intraday records before the close, and both settled at all-time highs for the third consecutive day. The last time US markets hit three consecutive records in a week, the macro backdrop was meaningfully less complex than today’s.
The caveat is Netflix. A -10% after-hours move in a stock with a $250+ billion market cap does not disappear into the night. Nasdaq futures will open Friday with that overhang. The Philly Fed prices-paid surge to 59.3 also adds to the inflation signal the market has been trying to look past. Two data points in one afternoon do not reverse a 12-day streak — but they do define what Friday’s open will need to navigate.
Netflix reported Q1 2026 revenue of $12.25 billion — up 16.2% year-over-year and above the $12.17 billion consensus. The earnings per share beat was aided materially by the $2.8 billion termination fee from Warner Bros. Discovery after Netflix walked away from that acquisition. Ad-supported tier growth was solid. The quarter, in isolation, was healthy. The market didn’t care. Two simultaneous negatives triggered the -10% after-hours selloff.
First: Q2 revenue guidance fell short of expectations. After a Q1 that benefitted from the Warner Bros. termination payment and AI-home-viewing tailwinds during the war, the forward guide reset expectations lower. Second — and arguably more significant structurally: co-founder Reed Hastings announced he will leave the board in June after 29 years. Hastings’ departure removes the last founding-era figure from Netflix’s governance structure. For a company trading near record valuations on the strength of its strategic franchise, losing a co-founder in the same quarter as a guidance miss is the kind of compound news event that the options market prices severely. NFLX opened the year up ~13% year-to-date. That outperformance is at risk at Friday’s open.
President Trump confirmed Thursday he spoke directly with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The calls represent the first explicit US diplomatic engagement on the Lebanon front — the fault line that nearly collapsed the Islamabad ceasefire talks last Saturday. Iran has insisted Lebanon is covered by the ceasefire; Israel and the US have maintained it is not. Netanyahu confirmed Israel is continuing to strike Hezbollah in Lebanon. But the fact that Washington is now engaging both sides directly — rather than leaving the Lebanon question entirely to Israel and Iran — signals a US-mediated de-escalation attempt is underway.
Israeli and Lebanese representatives are expected to meet in Washington next week in a bid to deescalate cross-border strikes, a State Department official told CBS News. If that meeting occurs, it would represent the first direct Israel-Lebanon US-hosted diplomacy since before the Iran war began. The ceasefire structure has three fault lines — Lebanon, enrichment, Hormuz — and for the first time all three are receiving active US diplomatic attention simultaneously.
Bloomberg reported Thursday afternoon that the US and Iran are considering a two-week ceasefire extension to allow more negotiating time before the current truce expires. The extension would provide the runway needed for technical talks to overcome the most contentious remaining issues — Hormuz reopening protocol, uranium enrichment, and Lebanon scope. MUFG Research confirmed the market backdrop: “The US and Iran are considering a two-week ceasefire extension to allow more time to negotiate a peace deal. With the truce officially due to expire next week, negotiators from both sides are seeking technical talks to overcome the most contentious issues.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also called Iranian FM Araghchi Thursday, calling for maintaining the momentum of ceasefire and negotiations. China’s diplomatic engagement on the Iran file is increasingly active — consistent with its role as Iran’s largest oil customer and the country most directly impacted by a sustained Hormuz closure. A ceasefire extension would give Beijing additional time to normalize Hormuz flows without a formal agreement.
Wednesday’s warning from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent became Thursday’s action. The US Treasury Department announced sanctions today on more than two dozen individuals, companies and vessels it says are involved in exporting Iranian oil and natural gas. All targeted entities are part of a network run by Mohammed Hossein Shamkhani — whose father was a top political adviser to Iran’s slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and was also killed in the US-Israeli strikes. The sanctions are both punitive and signalling: they are real enforcement actions with immediate asset-freezing effects, and they demonstrate that Bessent’s “financial equivalent of a bombing campaign” language was not rhetorical.
The Shamkhani network is one of the most active Iranian oil export channels, routing crude through third-country intermediaries to avoid existing sanctions. By sanctioning the network’s personnel and vessels directly, Treasury is closing the gap between stated sanctions policy and enforcement reality. The timing is deliberate: executed on the same day ceasefire extension talks were reported, the sanctions serve as leverage — Iran knows the financial pressure track is live regardless of whether diplomacy succeeds. Secondary sanctions on broader institutions doing business with Iran remain the next escalation rung, which Bessent flagged Wednesday but has not yet executed.
📈 Madison Air IPO: Madison Air Solutions, an indoor air ventilation and filtration supplier, soared ~19% to an intraday high of $32.02 on its first day of trading after pricing at $27. The NYSE listing is the first notable IPO since the war began — a signal that the primary market is reopening as the ceasefire holds. IPO health is a leading indicator for M&A pipeline confidence.
| Market | Status | Close Context |
|---|---|---|
🇯🇵 Japan (Nikkei 225) Asia · Closed |
+2.43% ATH |
Nikkei 225 closed at 59,518.34 — an all-time high — recovering all Iran war losses. Technology and consumer cyclical stocks led. Daikin Industries was the top performer after activist investor Elliott Investment Management pushed the company to improve performance. The Topix gained 1.33%. Japan’s ATH on the same day as the US triple-ATH is the coordinated global rally signal the market needed to confirm the ceasefire trade is real across borders. |
🇨🇳 China (CSI 300 + Shanghai) Asia · Closed |
Q1 GDP 5.0% |
China Q1 GDP grew 5.0% year-over-year — beating the 4.8% consensus and accelerating from the 4.5% Q4 2025 print. Industrial production +6.1% YoY. Exports grew 14.7% in Q1 — fastest pace since early 2022. However retail sales lagged (+2.4%), and economists warn the war’s energy shock is just beginning to show in Q2 data. CSI 300 rose 1.10% and Shanghai +0.7% on the data. Yuan near a three-year high. Societe Generale: “A strong Q1 print should give policymakers room to hold off major stimulus at the late-April Politburo meeting.” |
🇰🇷 South Korea (KOSPI) Asia · Closed |
+2.21% · 6,226 |
KOSPI closed at 6,226.05 — near record territory. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix led on AI chip demand expectations following TSMC’s strong Q1 results and raised capex guidance. South Korea is the most direct beneficiary of AI semiconductor cycle confirmation. The small-cap Kosdaq gained 0.91% to 1,162.97. |
🇭🇰 Hong Kong (Hang Seng) Asia · Closed |
+1.71% · 26,394 |
Hang Seng rose 1.71% to 26,394.26 on China GDP beat and ceasefire extension news. Chinese tech names led as the Politburo meeting later this month is now expected to avoid major new stimulus — a sign that organic growth momentum is seen as durable. Wang Yi’s call with Araghchi Thursday signalling China’s active diplomatic role in the ceasefire process also added sentiment. |
🇪🇺 Europe (FTSE, DAX, CAC) Europe · Closed |
+0.5% Broad |
Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.5% to 10,610. France’s CAC 40 +0.5% to 8,316.76. Germany’s DAX climbed 0.5% to 24,175.91. European markets tracking Wall Street and Asian optimism on ceasefire extension reports. Capital Economics flagged that eurozone GDP growth is forecast at 0.7% in 2026 — down from 1.1% pre-war — assuming conflict de-escalates by end-April. Europe has the most to gain from a Hormuz reopening of any major market region. |
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s April manufacturing index delivered a two-sided print that captures the entire macro tension of War Day 48 in a single data release. The headline came in at 26.7 — crushing the Dow Jones consensus of 12 by more than double. New orders and shipments both saw gains. Pennsylvania-area manufacturers are busy. The activity side of the economy is intact.
But the prices-paid index surged nearly 15 points to 59.3 — a sharp acceleration in input costs that mirrors the energy shock traveling through the production chain. New York’s services index also showed prices paid jumping 11 points to 73.8, described as a “sharp acceleration in input price increases.” The hiring gauge in the Philly report slipped to -5.1 from 0.8, and the business climate index fell to -49.3, described as conditions “much worse than normal.” This is the stagflationary signal: strong current activity with deteriorating forward sentiment and accelerating input costs. The Federal Reserve has 28 days before Powell’s term expires. This data does not make the May FOMC simpler for whoever is sitting in the chair.
Warsh’s Senate confirmation hearing is now scheduled — making the May 15 Powell exit timeline concrete rather than theoretical. Warsh’s hawkish track record (dissented against QE in 2010) stands against the patient-Fed assumption the ATH is pricing. The Philly Fed prices-paid surge to 59.3 makes Warsh’s task harder from day one. The 10Y yield rose 3.4bps Thursday as markets begin building a term premium for the transition. If Warsh signals a hawkish tilt before the May 28–29 FOMC, risk assets reprice from the top.
The headline activity beat (26.7 vs. 12) masked a prices-paid surge of 15 points to 59.3. New York services prices paid also jumped 11 points to 73.8. These are the leading indicators of where core CPI is heading in April and May data. The Schwab warning from the Beige Book about low-and-moderate income consumer stress is confirmed by the PepsiCo strategy of cutting prices to maintain volume. The Philly and NY data suggest inflation is reaccelerating in the production chain — exactly what the Fed cannot ignore if Hormuz stays closed.
Netflix -10% AH on Q2 guidance miss + Hastings departure. The $250B+ market cap overhang lands directly on Nasdaq futures at Friday’s open. If the market reads this as sector-wide consumer spending caution rather than company-specific, communication services and consumer discretionary both open lower. Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon Prime Video all report next week — Netflix has set a cautious bar for streaming expectations. The ATH streak’s fragility will be tested at 9:30 AM Friday.