Wall Street Pushes Higher as Dow Hits a Record and Iran Talks Stay in Focus

CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Market Watch, Reuters, Investor’s Business Daily, New York Post contributed to this report.

Wall Street finished the week on a stronger note Friday, with the Dow setting a fresh record as investors kept one eye on US-Iran talks and the other on earnings, rates and oil.

The Dow rose 0.82%, the S&P 500 climbed 0.65% and the Nasdaq added 0.67%. That left the S&P 500 on pace for its eighth straight weekly gain, which would be its best run since late 2023. The Dow, meanwhile, was finally back at an intraday high for the first time since the Iran war began.

The mood got a lift from signs that negotiations to end the conflict may be inching forward. Reuters reported that a Qatari team had arrived in Tehran to help push the talks along. Investors have been living on every headline in this war, and for now the market seems to like the idea that a deal is still possible.

That optimism has been enough to keep US stocks near record territory even with oil still acting jumpy and bond yields still causing headaches. Treasury yields were steadier Friday, and that helped take some pressure off growth stocks.

Tech was part of the bounce. Apple rose 2% and crossed a $4.5 trillion market value for the first time, while the Philadelphia semiconductor index gained 2.4%. Qualcomm stole the show with a 12% jump after the broader chip trade got a boost from strong optimism around AI and the latest earnings setup.

PC makers Dell and HP also ripped higher after Lenovo posted a better-than-expected revenue jump. That gave traders another reason to stay interested in hardware names tied to the AI buildout.

Elsewhere, Estée Lauder jumped after it walked away from merger talks with Puig. Workday also moved up after beating quarterly estimates.

The Dow’s record is especially notable because it has lagged the tech-heavy indices for much of this rally. It is a price-weighted index, so it does not move the same way the S&P 500 or Nasdaq do when megacap tech starts running. But this week, the broad mix of earnings strength, cooler yields and easing oil pressure gave it enough fuel to break out.

For the week, the Dow was up 2.2%, the S&P 500 was up 1.1%, and the Nasdaq had gained 0.8%. Not bad for a market that spent much of the year worrying about inflation, war and what the Fed might do next.

With Kevin Warsh set to be sworn in as Fed chair later in the day, traders were also looking ahead to what his arrival might mean for interest rates. For now, though, the market’s message was pretty simple: as long as Iran talks keep moving and yields keep calming down, stocks still have room to run.