Pedestrians at Pitt Street Mall in Sydney, Australia, on Thursday, July 24, 2025. <\/p>\n
Brendon Thorne | Bloomberg | Getty Images <\/p>\n
Markets in Australia and Japan mostly rose Friday, mirroring gains on Wall Street that saw both the S&P 500<\/a> and Nasdaq Composite<\/a> reach new highs.<\/p>\n This comes as investors took in strong<\/a> earnings<\/a> from Apple<\/a> and Caterpillar<\/a>, looking past weaker-than-expected economic data and threats of escalation in Iran by U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Brent<\/a>\u00a0crude prices briefly surged to $126 a barrel after Axios reported<\/a> that the U.S. military would brief Trump on potential action against Iran.<\/p>\n However, Brent’s June contract, which expired on Thursday, later settled at $114.01 a barrel, while U.S West Texas Intermediate<\/a> was 0.61% up at $105.71, as of 7:46 p.m. ET. Brent futures for July delivery closed at $110.4.<\/p>\n On Thursday, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that gross domestic product rose at a 2% annualized pace<\/a> in the first quarter. While that was an increase from 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2025, it was below the 2.2% consensus estimate by Wall Street economists.<\/p>\n Most major Asian markets are closed due to the May Day holiday. <\/p>\n Japan’s Nikkei 225<\/a> climbed 0.66%, but the Topix was marginally down, paring earlier losses. <\/p>\n Australia’s\u00a0S&P\/ASX 200<\/a> was up 0.91%, on pace to snap an eight-session losing streak.<\/p>\n Overnight in the U.S., the S&P 500 rose 1.02% to close at a record of 7,209.01, its first close above the 7,200 threshold. The tech-heavy\u00a0Nasdaq<\/a>\u00a0jumped 0.89%, hitting new intraday and closing records as well. <\/p>\n The blue-chip\u00a0Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0added 1.62%.<\/p>\n U.S. futures for all three major indexes were marginally up after the session, with S&P 500 futures<\/a>\u00a0advancing 0.16%, while\u00a0Nasdaq 100 futures<\/a>\u00a0were little changed.\u00a0Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0added 79 points, or about 0.2%.<\/p>\n \u2014 CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han and Sean Conlon contributed to this report. <\/p>\n