Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq edge higher as Trump says Iran wants to talk, US blockades Hormuz

US stocks closed near session highs, recovering from earlier losses as software stocks rallied and investor optimism of a Middle East peace deal grew.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rallied 0.6%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) gained more than 1% after trimming earlier losses. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) jumped more than 1.2% as software stocks rallied.

President Trump signaled that the Iranian leadership called his administration on Monday morning to work out a deal. This came after Trump threatened to destroy Iranian ships impeding a US blockade in the Strait of Hormuz in an effort to block Tehran’s hold on the critical pathway.

Software is ripping higher today.

The iShares software ETF (IGV) is having its best day in nearly a year, led by heavyweight components Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), Palantir (PLTR), Salesforce (CRM), and Palo Alto Networks (PANW). In our software heat map, only Cisco (CSCO) and Electronic Arts (EA) are trading lower.

On Friday, IGV broke below its February and March lows — a bearish development for such a big piece of the tech trade. But today it has surged back above that level.

In technical analysis, that’s called a false breakdown — when prices briefly break support, then quickly reclaim it. That’s a bullish sign for software, and a constructive one for tech more broadly.

Ceasefire or no ceasefire, Wall Street analysts are increasingly calling a bottom in stocks.

“The bottom is likely in,” Fundstrat’s Tom Lee noted on Monday.

The strategist signaled three factors which “point to a market bottom already in place, with the S&P potentially reaching a new all-time high within six months.”

First, stocks rose 5% in late March even as oil prices moved higher, breaking the inverse correlation that had held since the war began.

Second, Lee said the ceasefire announced earlier this month marked the start of deescalation, with oil falling 20% while the S&P rose.

Third, on April 9, the VIX closed below 20 for the first time since the war began, after previously peaking above 35.

Meanwhile, veteran strategist Ed Yardeni, who has noted “the S&P 500’s pullback bottomed” on March 30, wrote on Monday that the financial markets “may be learning to live with the war in the Middle East, as they have with the war between Ukraine and Russia.”

Yardeni Research maintains a 7,700 S&P 500 year-end target.

Signals that the market may be looking beyond the war come as earnings season kicks off, with profit growth expectations of 12.6%, according to FactSet data. This would mark the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit annualized earnings growth for the index.

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi reports:

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance’s David Hollerith reports:

Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO David Solomon undertook a difficult balancing act this morning, saying the outlook for dealmaking this year remains promising despite ongoing concerns.

“2026 began with a degree of optimism with markets at record highs,” Solomon told analysts Monday morning, but added that “things rarely move in a straight line.”

Solomon kicked off what will be a tricky earnings season for Wall Street CEOs. And Goldman Sachs’s results on Monday highlight the dynamic.

The bank reported its second-highest quarterly profit ever. Yet, following the release at market open, Goldman Sachs stock erased a more than 3% gain for 2026.

Read more here.

Tech has taken the baton back from energy.

The latest nine-day rally has flipped one of the market’s clearest wartime trades on its head.

And the move may not be over yet: the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) is on track for a ninth straight day of gains, its longest winning streak since December 2023.

During the sell-off from Feb. 27 through March 30 — a stretch that covered the start of the US-Iran war — energy (XLE) was the only sector in the green, rising 11% while tech (XLK) fell 8%.

Since the March 30 low, that script has reversed: Tech has jumped 13% in the best sector gain in the market, while energy has fallen 8%, the worst.

That kind of role reversal suggests investors are moving back toward the old bull-market playbook rather than embracing a broader new-market regime. Industrials (XLI), consumer discretionary (XLY), and real estate (XLRE) have all rebounded sharply too, but the average sector is still trailing the S&P 500 (^GSPC) in this bounce.

There’s another wrinkle under the surface: Even tech’s comeback has not been broad.

Semiconductor stocks (^SOX, SOXX) have surged while software continues to lag badly, a split that has opened up across the sector. And as yesterday’s “Magnificent Seven”7 Chart of the Day showed, even Big Tech is no longer moving as one.

The next test is whether this leadership reversal has staying power — or whether the next geopolitical jolt sends investors running right back into the war trade.

President Trump threatened to destroy Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, just minutes after a US blockade was set to begin in the region.

“Iran’s Navy is laying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated — 158 ships,” Trump wrote on Monday morning.

He noted the US has not targeted a small number of what they call “fast attack ships because “we did not consider them much of a threat.”

“Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea,” he added.

Over the weekend, Trump announced that the US would begin a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday at 10 a.m. ET, restricting vessels entering and leaving the critical waterway.

The move is intended to cut off Iran’s ability to export oil and reduce the country’s control over the passage.

Oil futures trimmed earlier gains but still remained above $100 per barrel on Monday.

After more than a year of going nowhere, Amazon (AMZN) is finally pressing into a key test.

The stock has rallied to a key resistance level after its biggest three-day surge in five months, leading the “Magnificent Seven” stocks off the March 30 low.

Amazon is now running into a downtrend line drawn from the early November high and early January peak, while the $238–$240 area has repeatedly capped rallies since early 2025.

That leaves the stock at a decision point. With shares lower today, this may be the pause or pullback you’d expect at the resistance level. But if Amazon can push through $240, it would open the door to retest all-time highs near $255–$260.

On weakness, bulls want to see the $220–$225 area hold, which lines up with the 200-day moving average and recent support.