Dow Surges 800 Points as Trump Says US and Iran Had ‘Productive’ Talks

CNBC, NBC News, Axios, and the Wall Street Journal contributed to this report.

Wall Street got hit with a wild early-morning jolt Monday, and the timing raised eyebrows.

Around 6:50 a.m. in New York, S&P 500 e-Mini futures on the CME suddenly saw a sharp burst of trading volume. Oil futures showed the same kind of unusual spike. Then, about 15 minutes later, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the US and Iran had held “productive” talks and that planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure were being put on hold.

Markets reacted fast. S&P 500 futures jumped more than 2.5% before the opening bell, while West Texas Intermediate crude dropped nearly 6%.

By the time the dust settled, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up about 800 points. The Russell 2000 climbed too, and both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were still holding solid gains later in the morning, though not quite as big as the initial surge suggested.

Oil, meanwhile, got slammed. US crude fell around 13% by late morning, with Brent also sliding hard. Natural gas prices dropped in the US and Europe, and heating oil fell too. Treasury yields eased after jumping late last week on inflation fears tied to higher energy prices.

The market had been on edge all weekend. Trump had warned Saturday that Iran had 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face attacks on its power plants. That deadline was supposed to run out Monday night. But after Trump’s latest post, he said Iran had “called” and wanted to settle things diplomatically.

Iranian state media pushed back, saying Trump had backed down. Tehran also denied there was any real dialogue underway.

Still, the bigger message for traders was simple: one social media post had just changed the mood across stocks, bonds and oil in a matter of minutes.

The early trading activity before Trump’s announcement also caught attention because it came without an obvious public catalyst. In thin premarket conditions, those kinds of volume bursts stand out. Some traders may have gotten very lucky. Others, at least on paper, looked suspiciously well-positioned.

For now, markets are trading the hope that the war does not escalate further. That hope is doing a lot of lifting.