U.S. stocks powered to fresh records Tuesday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite each topping their previous all-time highs, as a slide in oil prices and a cascade of better-than-expected corporate earnings reports gave investors renewed confidence even against the backdrop of the ongoing conflict with Iran.
The broad-market S&P 500 rose 58.47 points, or 0.8%, to 7,259.22, according to the Associated Press, eclipsing the peak it had set at the end of the prior week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 356.35 points, finishing at 49,298.25, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 238.32 points to close at a record 25,326.13.
The rally was fueled in part by a sharp pullback in crude oil prices after Monday’s spike. Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 4% to settle at $109.87 a barrel, retreating from an intraday high above $115 on Monday. U.S. military leaders said a ceasefire with Iran remained in place even after Iran was blamed for attacks against the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. ally, the day before. The U.S. military is also working to force open a safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint that would allow oil tankers to resume shipments from the Persian Gulf and potentially bring crude prices down further.
The market’s record-setting run has persisted largely because of the strong profits U.S. companies have reported for the first three months of 2026, despite the jump in oil prices since late February. “This has been a ‘why ask why’ market,” Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, told the AP. “You just have to go with it.” He said investors are focusing on corporate earnings and how much companies are spending on AI data centers and other investments.
DuPont led another parade of earnings beats, its shares climbing 8.4% after the chemical giant raised its full-year financial forecasts, even as it acknowledged that its water technologies business had felt some impact from the war due to logistics disruptions in the Middle East. American Electric Power Co. advanced 1.8% and engine maker Cummins rose 2.8% after both posted better-than-expected first-quarter profits.
Pinterest surged 6.9% after the online bulletin board reported that its number of active monthly users jumped 11% to 631 million, helping it top Wall Street’s sales and profit targets. Anheuser-Busch InBev saw its U.S.-traded shares climb 8.7% after the brewer credited growth for its Corona, Stella Artois and Michelob Ultra brands outside their home markets. “Cheers to beer,” CEO Michel Doukeris said in a statement.
Those gains helped offset a slide in Palantir Technologies, whose shares fell 6.9% despite reporting stronger results than expected. The data-mining firm’s stock has struggled this year amid worries about increased competition in the software industry, and it is coming off a three-year period in which the stock more than doubled each year.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note edged down to 4.42% from 4.45% late Monday, a move that followed mixed readings on the U.S. economy. Growth among service-sector businesses unexpectedly decelerated last month, with some companies citing the war’s effect on spending, while a separate report showed that employers advertised slightly more job openings at the end of March than economists had expected, an encouraging signal for the labor market. The 10-year yield remains well above the 3.97% level recorded just before the war began, a rise that has made mortgages and other loans more expensive for U.S. households and businesses.
Stock markets abroad were mixed. The CAC 40 in Paris rose 1.1%, but London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.4%. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dipped 0.8%, while many markets were closed for holidays. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.2% after the country’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate to 4.35%, citing the conflict in the Middle East for sharply increasing fuel and commodity prices that are already adding to inflation.