U.S. stock index futures rallied on Wednesday amid growing hopes for an end to the Middle East war after President Donald Trump and Iranian officials signaled openness to a temporary ceasefire.
Meanwhile, oil prices tumbled over 15% after Trump said the U.S. had postponed planned strikes against Iran by two weeks to broker a ceasefire.
S&P 500 futures had jumped by 177 points, or 2.4%, by 02:21 ET (06:31 GMT). Nasdaq 100 futures had climbed 805 points, or 3.3%, and Dow Jones futures had surged 1,134 points, or 2.4%.
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Gains in futures came following a subdued session on Wall Street on Tuesday, where a rebound in chip stocks was largely offset by weakness in other sectors.
Trump postpones Iran strikes, Tehran says open to ceasefire Trump said on Tuesday evening that he will suspend planned military strikes on Iran by two weeks, following Pakistani efforts to broker a ceasefire.
The president signaled that the U.S. was open to ceasing further hostilities against Iran, subject to the country re-opening the Strait of Hormuz. He also said that a ceasefire deal will be hashed out in the coming weeks.
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Aragchi, said Tehran will cease its “defensive operations” if attacks against the country were halted, while also stating that safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible.
Trump’s move to postpone the Iran strikes came just hours before his late-Tuesday deadline for severe attacks against Tehran. He largely attributed the de-escalation to Pakistani diplomatic efforts.
Wall Street notch muted close as chipmakers rise, others lag Wall Street indexes closed mostly flat in the prior session, although they did end well above their intraday lows on strength in chipmakers and as markets speculated over an Iran ceasefire.
The benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.1% to 6,616.84 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.1% to 22,017.85 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% to 46,584.46.
A tracker of the semiconductor sector jumped over 1%, aided by a rally in Broadcom after it expanded an artificial intelligence chips deal with Alphabet-owned Google and artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic.
Other chipmakers, including Nvidia and Intel Corporation, rose 0.3% and 4.2%, respectively. The sector saw some bargain buying after logging deep losses in March.
Wall Street was sitting on some gains so far in April, as bargain buyers stepped in after a major wipeout in March. But a slew of mixed signals on the Iran war sparked heightened volatility, with markets now waiting to see whether a U.S.-Iran ceasefire could be achieved.
