A sign shows the price of gas at a store in Freeport, Maine, on March 31. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP)
April 1, 2026 8:09 AM, EDT
| Updated: April 1, 2026 2:19 PM, EDT
NEW YORK — Stocks are rushing higher worldwide, and oil prices are easing April 1 as hopes build that the war with Iran could end soon. That’s even though some of the signals investors saw as hopeful are already under dispute, and several prior bouts of optimism in financial markets quickly got undercut by continued, fierce fighting in the war.
The S&P 500 rallied 1.1% and added to its leap from the day before, which was its best since last spring. That followed even bigger gains for stock markets across Europe and Asia, including an 8.4% surge in South Korea, which were catching up to Wall Street’s rally from March 31.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 401 points, or 0.9%, as of 12:49 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.7% higher.
Oil prices also fell back toward $100 per barrel after President Donald Trump said late March 31 that the U.S. military could end its offensive in two to three weeks.
That added to optimism following a couple tenuous signals of hope from earlier March 31 that Wall Street latched onto, including a news report quoting Iran’s president as saying that it has “the necessary will to end the war” as long as certain requirements are met, including “guarantees to prevent a recurrence of aggression.”
The worry on Wall Street has been that the war may last a long time and keep oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf out of global markets, which could create a brutal blast of inflation.
But hope has been quick to reverse to doubt on Wall Street, triggering manic swings back and forth for financial markets since the war with Iran began. Trump has also made statements that lifted markets, only to see the gains quickly disappear after increasing his military threats.
Shortly before Wall Street began trading on April 1, Trump claimed in a post on his social media network that Iran “has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!”
“We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”
READ MORE: Iran War Shakes Up Markets Beyond Oil
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, called Trump’s claim about asking for a ceasefire “false and baseless,” according to a report on Iranian state television.
Oil prices also remain high, even if they’ve eased recently. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, was sitting at $101.97 following its declines, which is still up from roughly $70 before the war began.
U.S. gasoline prices rose again overnight to a national average of $4.06 per gallon, according to the auto club AAA.
Iran, meanwhile, hit an oil tanker off the coast of Qatar and Kuwait’s airport on April 1 while airstrikes battered Tehran as the fighting continued. Iran also continues to hold a grip on the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes during peacetime.
oil down $1/bbl, national average price of gasoline up at $4.07/gal, diesel $5.47/gal- still a few states (MI, IN, OH) could see gas prices jump today- so the national average could inch up to $4.10/gal, and the next chapter may be written tonight when Trump addresses the ntn.
— Patrick De Haan (@GasBuddyGuy) April 1, 2026
“De-escalation hopes have given markets a lift, but we think the effects of the war would, in many cases, persist even if the war did end soon,” Thomas Mathews, head of markets, Asia Pacific at Capital Economics, said in a research note April 1.
“It’s worth thinking through how markets might fare if the war were to end ‘very soon,’ ” he wrote. “Do markets have further to recover if sentiment continues to improve? The answer is almost certainly yes.”
The White House said Trump will deliver a public address the evening of April 1 on the Iran war.
On Wall Street, most stocks rose as Big Tech powered the move higher. Gains of 4.1% for Alphabet and 1.3% for Nvidia were two of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.
Eli Lilly climbed 4.5% after U.S. regulators approved its GLP-1 pill for weight loss.
Fresh from TMC, ATA President Chris Spear takes a candid look at what today’s fleet maintenance trends reveal about the broader state of trucking. Tune in above or by going to RoadSigns.ttnews.com.
Such gains have pulled the S&P 500, which sits at the heart of many 401(k) accounts, back to within 5.4% of its all-time high set early this year. Just on March 30, the index briefly neared a 10% drop from its record, a steep-enough fall that professional investors have a name for it: a “correction.”
Nike sank 14.3% even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Analysts said it gave some lackluster financial forecasts.
Hasbro fell 4.5% after the toy company found someone had gained unauthorized access to its computer network and is working to assess the full impact.
In stock markets abroad, indexes leaped more than 2% in France and Germany. Asian markets had even bigger gains.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 5.2% after a survey showed business sentiment for major Japanese manufacturers improved despite worries about the Iran war.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady after a report said U.S. retailers made more money in February than economists expected. A separate report said U.S. manufacturing growth last month was slightly faster than economists expected.
The 10-year Treasury yield held at 4.30%, where it was late March 31.
AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed.
