NEW YORK\u00a0\u2014\u00a0U.S. stocks drifted higher in hesitant trading Monday, ahead of a deadline that President Trump has set to open the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
The Standard & Poor\u2019s 500 index rose 0.4%, coming off its first winning week in the last six. The Dow Jones industrial average added 0.4% and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.5%.<\/p>\n
Oil prices likewise rose after seesawing through the day amid uncertainty about what will happen in the war with Iran and how long it will slow the global flow of oil and natural gas. Iran on Monday rejected the latest ceasefire proposal and instead said it wants a permanent end to the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe won\u2019t merely accept a ceasefire,\u201d Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told the Associated Press. \u201cWe only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won\u2019t be attacked again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fighting continued in the war, meanwhile, including an Israeli attack on an Iranian petrochemical plant. And in the background was the clock ticking toward a deadline, one that Trump has moved multiple times, where he has threatened to attack Iranian power plants if the country does not open the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the world\u2019s oil typically sails through the strait during peacetime. <\/p>\n
Trump on Monday suggested that his latest deadline of Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time will be the final one, saying he\u2019d already given enough extensions. \u201cThe entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Monday also offered the first chance for U.S. stock prices to react to a report from Friday that said U.S. employers hired more workers last month than economists expected. The unemployment rate unexpectedly improved. <\/p>\n
They\u2019re encouraging signals for an economy that\u2019s had to absorb painful leaps in costs for gasoline since the war\u2019s beginning. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is nearly $4.12 across the country, according to the American Automobile Assn. It was below $3 a couple days before the United States and Israel launched attacks to begin the war in late February.<\/p>\n
For countries that don\u2019t produce as much oil as the United States, the pain has been even worse. That\u2019s because they are more reliant on oil coming from the Middle East, and the war has blocked in much of the crude produced in the Persian Gulf area. That oil typically gets to customers around the world by exiting the Strait of Hormuz. <\/p>\n
The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 0.8% to settle at $112.41 after erasing an earlier modest drop. Brent crude, the international standard, added 0.8% to $109.77 per barrel and remains well above its roughly $70 price from before the war. <\/p>\n
On Wall Street, a split performance for the Big Tech stocks that dominate the U.S. market kept things in check. Apple rose 1.1% and Amazon added 1.4%. Tesla slid 2.2% and Microsoft fell 0.2%.<\/p>\n
Bank stocks were strong, including a 1.3% rise for JPMorgan Chase.<\/p>\n
Its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, said in his annual letter to shareholders released Monday that the U.S. economy continues to be resilient, and businesses still look healthy. He, though, also acknowledged that prices for stocks and other assets are high, which could imply \u201canything less than positive outcomes could have a dramatic impact on global markets.\u201d<\/p>\n
All told, the S&P 500 rose 29.14 points to 6,611.83. The Dow gained 165.21 points to 46,669.88, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 117.16 points to 21,996.34.<\/p>\n
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The 10-year Treasury yield was at 4.33%. That\u2019s still well above its 3.97% level from before the war. The rise has pushed up rates for mortgages and other loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which slows the economy.<\/p>\n
A report Monday said that finance, transportation and other U.S. businesses in services sectors grew in March for a 21st straight month of expansion. But the growth was slightly slower than economists expected, and a measure of prices accelerated at its fastest pace since 2022 in a potentially discouraging signal for inflation. <\/p>\n
In stock markets abroad, Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 added 0.5%, and South Korea\u2019s Kospi jumped 1.4%. Many other markets in Europe and Asia were closed for holidays. <\/p>\n
Choe writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK\u00a0\u2014\u00a0U.S. stocks drifted higher in hesitant trading Monday, ahead of a deadline that President Trump has set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[21751,15477,21754,6388,102,21753,681,5422,882,7952,11666,1219,101,392,21752,36,1142],"class_list":{"0":"post-54906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-average-price","9":"tag-deadline","10":"tag-entire-country","11":"tag-gasoline","12":"tag-hormuz","13":"tag-iranian-power-plant","14":"tag-monday","15":"tag-night","16":"tag-oil-price","17":"tag-report","18":"tag-rise","19":"tag-strait","20":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","21":"tag-trump","22":"tag-u-s-employer","23":"tag-war","24":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116360266619454341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}