Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell in New York City on April 7, 2026.
Charly Triballeau | Afp | Getty Images
The S&P 500 posted a slim gain on Tuesday as traders grew hopeful that a proposal brokered by Pakistan may result in an eleventh-hour deal between the U.S. and Iran.
The broad market index inched up 0.08% and closed at 6,616.85, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.10% to settle at 22,017.85. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 85.42 points, or 0.18%, closing at 46,584.46.
The major averages came off their session lows in the final hour of trading as Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asked Trump to postpone for two weeks a deadline to attack Iran’s power plants and bridges. Pakistan also requested Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz for two weeks “as a goodwill gesture.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump “has been made aware of the proposal, and a response will come.”
Traders had been eyeing an 8 p.m. ET deadline set by Trump for Tehran to either reach a deal to reopen the waterway or suffer strikes on its infrastructure. Just Tuesday morning, Trump said in a Truth Social post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
At the time, the president still left room for the possibility that the U.S. wouldn’t end up attacking the Middle Eastern country after the deadline, adding that “now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”
Trump’s remarks kept investors on edge throughout the session, initially weighing down on stocks and pushing oil prices higher. Ultimately, oil ended the day little changed. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled up 54 cents to $112.95 per barrel. International Brent crude futures dipped 15 cents to $109.62 a barrel.
While Facet’s Tom Graff believes investors should assume that oil prices will stay “significantly higher” than the levels they were at prior to the war, he views Iran leaving the Strait closed as a “negotiation ploy.” Even though the country might want to reopen it on its terms rather than those of the U.S., no one – including Iran – benefits from a permanent closure there, he said.
“I just don’t think it’s sustainable that the Strait remains closed for months and months and months,” the chief investment officer told CNBC. “Something is going to have to give there at some point.”
Broadcom was a bright spot of the session, rising 6% on the heels of the company signing expanded artificial intelligence deals with Google and Anthropic.