NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes gained on Monday as recent hostilities between the US and Iran eased, while Comcast shares soared on plans to split into two companies.
Iranian and US technical teams working to implement an interim peace deal are expected to meet in Doha in the coming days, a source told Reuters.
The latest push to bring the conflict to an end follows several rounds of diplomacy that appeared to bring the sides close to an agreement, before the negotiations stalled. Meanwhile, occasional flare-ups in hostilities have kept alive the risk of a broader regional escalation.
“The scattered conflict with Iran continues, seemingly following the established pattern of heightened tensions into the weekend before those are resolved ahead of Monday’s market open,” William Blair’s macro analyst Richard de Chazal said.
At 11:45 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 242.26 points, or 0.47 percent, to 52,118.37, the S&P 500 gained 57.17 points, or 0.78 percent, to 7,411.19 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 345.87 points, or 1.36 percent, to 25,641.58.
Five of 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes were in the green. Communications services led gains with a 2.9 percent jump, with Comcast advancing 6.4 percent after the media and cable provider said it plans to separate into two independent publicly traded companies through a tax-free spinoff of NBCUniversal and Sky.
RBC Capital Markets raised its 12-month target for the S&P 500 index to 8,150 from 7,900, citing earnings strength and a supportive macro backdrop.
The earnings season is set to begin in the coming weeks, marking the next major test for stocks this year. “The 21 percent S&P 500 return over the past 12 months has been driven entirely by earnings, making the upcoming Q2 2026 reporting season an important catalyst for the forward trajectory of the market,” Ben Snider, chief US equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, said in a note.
Concerns about AI spending have injected an additional dose of uncertainty into the market.
A selloff last week in investor favorites such as semiconductors and the so-called Magnificent Seven drove the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 to weekly losses. The blue-chip Dow Jones held up better than the other Wall Street benchmarks last week, gaining 0.6 percent.
On Monday, the information technology index added 0.9 percent and was poised to snap a five-session losing streak.
Traders are also expecting at least one rate hike by the Federal Reserve this year to keep inflation under control, according to data compiled by LSEG. The June jobs data, which is expected later this week, could affect the expectations.
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