The Dow Jones cooled 400 points from the day’s high to end just above the flat line, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained 1.1% and 1.9% respectively, recovering all of Wednesday’s losses.
Gains on the tech-heavy indices were led by chip stocks with Nvidia surging nearly 3%, while peers such as AMD and Micron gaining 4.9% and 8.7% respectively. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumped 6.5% as well on Thursday.
US markets were also subject to their quarterly “Triple Witching” phenomenon on Thursday, where notional options worth $7.5 trillion faced expiry.
Why Did US Markets Surge On Thursday?
Markets cheered the formal signing of the peace deal between the US and Iran, with the focus shifting to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a 60-day negotiating period between the two parties.
“Oil is flowing”, US President Donald Trump wrote in one of his many Truth Social posts on Thursday. Oil prices have given up nearly all the gains it made during the war. Three Saudi tankers carrying six million barrels of oil, made its way out of the Strait of Hormuz, Kpler confirmed.
“The progress toward releasing oil supply from the Persian Gulf has supported equity prices,” said Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets. “Lower energy costs have also eased forward inflationary concerns and led to meaningful declines in longer-dated Treasury yields.”
Shares of Intel also surged to a record high after a 10% move on Thursday. Trump in a Truth Social post announced that both Intel and Apple will work together to design and produce semiconductors in the US. The stock has already risen 240% so far this year.
The only sore spot in the market on Thursday were consultancy names, which sank after Accenture’s results miss and guidance cut. The Accenture stock itself was down 18%, the most on record, while those of its peers such as Cognizant and Capgemini also fell between 8% to 11%. The US-listed shares of Infosys (ADRs) were also down 10% overnight.
Wall Street will be shut today on account of the Juneteenth holiday, which marks the celebration of the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.
