2026-04-17 22:05
publication
2026-04-17 22:05
Reports of the opening of the Strait of Hormuz led to a sharp drop in oil prices and an outpouring of enthusiasm on Wall Street. The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 set new highs, confirming Wednesday's breakout.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi announced on Friday that all commercial ships can pass through the Strait of Hormuz until the ceasefire with the US and Israel expires. This information caused a nearly 10% drop in the price of Brent crude oil, which ended the week at around USD 90 per barrel. But just hours later, semi-official reports emerged that there would be no unblocking of the strait without the U.S. Navy unblocking Iranian ports. Admiral Bradley Cooper, head of the US Central Command, confirmed that US forces are clearing mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
So we don't really know what the situation is and when tanker traffic through this critical water area will be fully resumed. However, Wall Street's reaction was as if it would happen tomorrow. The S&P500 rose by 1.20% and reached 7,126.06 points, breaking the all-time records set on Wednesday and Thursday.
He accomplished something rarely seen The Nasdaq Composite, which gained 1.52%, ended in positive territory thirteenth session in a row and also set a new bull market peak. This benchmark managed to gain over 17% from the 7-month minimum established on the last day of March in just over two weeks. The S&P500 index increased by over 12% at the same time. The Dow Jones industrial average was also close to the historical maximum, gaining 1.79% on Friday and reaching close to 50,000 points.
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“If we move to a situation where the path is still to de-escalation – but as a bonus we get commodity flows through Hormuz returning to relatively normal pre-war levels, that obviously removes quite a lot of the risk to the economy,” Michael Brown, senior strategist at Pepperstone, told Reuters. “I think that's why markets are reacting so positively,” Brown added.
Only shareholders of oil companies were not happy. Exxon Mobil shares fell by 3.6% and Chevron by 2.2%. Owners of Netflix shares also had a very bad day, which dropped by almost 10%. Most likely, it was a reaction to the resignation of the company's long-time president, because the quarterly results themselves were above analysts' consensus.
The season for publishing reports for the first quarter began this week on Wall Street. Before its launch, analysts expected that company profits attributable to the S&P500 index increased by 12.6% year on year. And adding the standard “positive surprises”, one could expect EPS dynamics to be close to 20%. However, rapidly growing profits are accompanied by very high valuations, which may limit the potential for further share price increases.
K.K
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