Stock market today: S&P 500, Nasdaq rise, Dow slips amid hopes for US-Iran talks

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) just sprinted into rare territory.

Since 1962, the index has logged a 10% gain in 11 trading days only 23 times. The historical takeaway is encouraging, but not in the way traders might expect.

The typical short-term returns are modest — median gains of 1% after one week, 2% after one month, and 7% after three months — while the setup has tended to look much better with time, with median gains rising to 12% after six months, 20% after one year, and 35% after two years.

What makes the current episode more interesting is where it happened.

Most of these historical signals came after deeper drawdowns — not back near the highs. In this case, the S&P 500 is already near a record high, leaving only three close historical comparisons in the data: October 1982, March 2000, and November 2020.

Bottom line: This is not a clean all-clear. Two of those cases led to strong follow-through. One marked a major multiyear top.

On Monday, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) erased its Iran war premium.

Today, it has erased its entire 9% decline in only 11 trading days, and notched its first intraday all-time high since Jan. 28.

Under the hood, the rebound has been led by growth. Tech (XLK) and consumer discretionary (XLY) are the only sectors outperforming the broader market, and both are up by double digits. Communication services (XLC) also stands out, up 9%, meaning the three leading sectors are also the ones that house all of the “Magnificent Seven” stocks.

The laggards are mostly defensive groups. Energy (XLE) is the clear outlier, down nearly 10% over the last 11 days. Consumer staples (XLP) is slightly negative, while utilities (XLU) and healthcare (XLV) are up only modestly.

Micron (MU) investors took some profits, sending shares of the memory chip maker down 4% in Wednesday afternoon trading.

But the day’s move did little to dent an impressive run in the stock this month.

Micron shares are up 40% since the beginning of April, as investors have grown bullish on demand for memory chips amid the broader artificial intelligence spending boom.

A shortage of memory chips critical for the data centers has driven prices for the chips up, leading the few memory chip makers, including Micron, SK Hynix (000660.KS), and Samsung (005930.KS), to focus on those higher-margin chips over the chips that go into consumer products like laptops.

But the stock has been plagued by concerns about greater AI efficiency that could lessen demand for memory and whether Micron could sustain its torrid growth rate. Although Micron stock has risen 50% year to date, it nearly erased those gains at the end of March.

Robinhood (HOOD) stock jumped 8% on Wednesday, extending gains from the prior session after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the removal of long-standing day trading limits for small investors.

The SEC approved removing a $25,000 minimum asset balance requirement for day traders. Instead, the new framework allows investors of all account sizes to trade more freely as long as they have enough money to cover the risk of each trade.

“This is unequivocally bullish for Robinhood, in my view,” Sean Farrell, head of digital assets at Fundstrat, said on Tuesday night.

Farrell noted Robinhood will benefit from the rule change, given that the average account balance for its users is much smaller than that of traditional brokerage firms.

Read more here.

Allbirds (BIRD) stock is soaring on Wednesday after the company announced it’s switching from being a sneaker business to an artificial intelligence company.

The stock jumped as high as $23 per share and is now trading around $17, a far cry from its price of less than $3 just days ago.

The company plans to change its name to NewBird AI and raise $50 million, with the funds expected to close during the second quarter of 2026.

In late March, Allbirds sold its footwear assets to American Exchange Group, the company behind Aerosoles and Ed Hardy, for $39 million.

NewBird AI will aim to “acquire high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware” and “provide access under long-term lease arrangements, meeting customer demand that spot markets and hyperscalers are unable to reliably service,” the company said in a press release.

Essentially, the company is looking to jump on the AI bandwagon, providing high-performance AI chips and data center space.

“The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet,” the company said in the release.

Allbirds launched 10 years ago and went public in 2021. It was known for its Wool Runner shoe, but investors struggled to stay optimistic on the stock as customers gravitated toward Hoka (DECK) and On (ONON) shoes.

President Trump said during a televised interview aired Wednesday morning that he would move to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell if he doesn’t resign when his term as chair ends in May.

“Well, then I’ll have to fire him, OK?” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business.

While Trump’s pick to lead the Fed, Kevin Warsh, is set to begin confirmation hearings this month, there is a chance Warsh will not be confirmed by May 15, the final day of Powell’s term. In that case, Powell would have the option to remain as chair “pro tem” until Warsh — or someone else — is confirmed, which the current chair has said would elect to do.

Complicating matters is the Department of Justice’s criminal probe into Powell over alleged cost overruns for renovations to the Federal Reserve building. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, has said he will not vote to confirm any candidate to be the next Fed chair until the Justice Department drops its investigation into Powell.

Trump, however, has continued to insist that the probe continue, going beyond traditional norms of the division of powers by explicitly directing the Justice Department’s work.

“Here’s a man who took this little, tiny building and a couple of other little, tiny complex, and he’s spending more than $3 billion,” Trump said in the interview with Fox Business.

“It is probably corrupt, but what it really is is incompetent, and we have to show the incompetence of that,” Trump said. The president also noted that Tillis “is an American,” and that the Republican senator “knows what to do.”

While Powell’s term as chair ends in May, his term as a Fed governor runs through January 2028, and he has said he will not step down from the central bank until the probe is resolved.

Repairs to energy-linked infrastructure in the Middle East could cost up to $58 billion, with $50 billion in oil and gas-related repairs alone, the energy consultancy Rystad Energy said Wednesday morning.

In the seven weeks thus far of the so-called third Gulf war, air strikes and drones have damaged refineries, processing plants, pipelines, storage facilities, and other critical energy infrastructure. Rystad’s $58 billion repair bill estimate is more than double the $25 billion figure it published three weeks ago.

The primary constraint, however, is likely not to be capital but instead the availability of the smaller pool of equipment and contractors available to commence repairs, Rystad noted. Equipment and labor crews previously allocated to new build projects will have to be redirected, delaying timelines for new capacity, while those facilities needing damage will have to compete for the small pool of specialized labor available.

“This is no longer just a story about damaged facilities in the Gulf, it is a stress test for the global energy supply chain,” said Karan Satwani, a senior supply chain research analyst at Rystad.

The effects are unlikely to be felt evenly, Rystad noted. While facilities in more accessible countries with contractors readily available could start repairs within weeks, repairs on more complex facilities, such as Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG complex, could take much longer to begin, as specialized parts, equipment, and labor are scarce.

“Repair work does not create new capacity, it redirects existing capacity, and that redirection will be felt in project delays and into inflation far beyond the Middle East,” Satwani said.

“The $58 billion bill is the headline, but the knock-on effects on energy investment timelines globally may prove just as significant.”

Shares of Snap (SNAP) popped over 10% in premarket trading after the social media company joined a growing list of tech companies cutting jobs.

Reuters reports:

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Bank of America (BAC) stock is up 1% in premarket trading after reporting a 17% rise in profits in the first quarter.

Yahoo Finance’s David Hollerith reports:

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The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is knocking on the door of the 7,000 mark. Banks are posting profit beats, and the latest wholesale inflation reading came in better than expected. What’s not to like?

Last week, there was plenty, apparently. Yahoo Finance’s Hamza Shaban writes:

Read more here in the takeaway from today’s Morning Brief.

Bloomberg reports:

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Reuters reports:

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Bloomberg reports:

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Reuters reports:

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