* Markets choppy amid peace talk and corporate earnings
cross-currents
* S&P 500, Nasdaq poised for modest weekly gains; Dow set
to tick lower on the week
* Oil dips as signs of peace talk progress outweighed
fears of prolonged supply disruption
* Dollar set for weekly gain
(Updates to mid-afternoon trading)
NEW YORK, April 24 (Reuters) – The S&P 500 and the
Nasdaq advanced on Friday as investors monitored the fragile
U.S.-Iran truce and weighed solid corporate earnings against
downbeat forward guidance due to the war-related energy price
shock.
Tech shares, buoyed by strong results from Intel,
helped put the Nasdaq on top, while the S&P 500 was more
modestly green. The Dow was in negative territory.
For the week, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq appeared set to log
modest gains, while the blue-chip Dow was poised to register a
decline from last Friday’s close. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq
continued to hover near record highs.
“Intel just confirms the AI boom is alive and well, and
this earnings season is off to a tremendous start,” said Ryan
Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group in Omaha.
Peace talks between the United States and Iran could resume
shortly in Pakistan, where Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas
Araqchi was due to arrive Friday night, according to Pakistani
sources.
Additionally, the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire was extended by three
weeks following a high-level meeting at the White House,
according to U.S. President Donald Trump.
“There’s optimism that talks are going to restart soon,”
Detrick added. “With the extreme weakness we’ve seen from
defense stocks the last two weeks, the market might be saying
there could be some type of major peace deal on the horizon,
which clearly is a net positive.”
Oil prices dipped as optimism over potential U.S.-Iran peace
talks offset supply concerns.
U.S. crude fell 1.51% to settle at $94.40 per barrel,
while Brent settled at $105.33 per barrel, down 0.25% on
the day.
SOLID CORPORATE EARNINGS MARRED BY DOUR GUIDANCE
First-quarter reporting season has hit full stride, with 139
of the companies in the S&P 500 having reported. Of those, 81%
have beaten earnings estimates. Analysts now see aggregate
year-on-year S&P 500 earnings growth of 16.1%, up from the 14.4%
growth projected at the beginning of the quarter, according to
LSEG I/B/E/S.
But on analyst conference calls, CEOs are increasingly providing
downbeat guidance due to spiking fuel costs resulting from the
war on Iran. Consumer products company Procter & Gamble
warned on its Friday earnings call that it expects a roughly $1
billion hit to its fiscal 2027 profit because of the war-related
energy price shock.
Next week, a spate of high-profile earnings is on the docket,
including tech and tech-adjacent megacaps Amazon,
Alphabet, and Meta Platforms. Oil supermajors
Exxon Mobil and Chevron are slated to report
next Friday.
“There’s some very big names set to report next week,”
Detrick said. “We’re optimistic we’re going to continue to see
solid earnings, just like we have had so far this earnings
season.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 120.07 points, or
0.24%, to 49,190.25, the S&P 500 rose 50.33 points, or
0.71%, to 7,158.80 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 374.31
points, or 1.53%, to 24,812.03.
European shares closed lower, dipping to more than a
two-week low and logging a weekly decline of 2.5% as investors
worried about energy supply disruption by the Middle East
conflict.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe rose
4.80 points, or 0.45%, to 1,072.11.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.58%, while
Europe’s broad FTSEurofirst 300 index fell 12.54
points, or 0.51%.
Emerging market stocks rose 12.65 points, or 0.79%, to
1,611.96. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside
Japan closed higher by 0.82%, to 825.80, while
Japan’s Nikkei rose 575.95 points, or 0.97%, to
59,716.18.
The dollar dipped but remained on pace for a weekly gain as
war uncertainty kept investors on edge.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a
basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.3%
to 98.53, with the euro up 0.29% at $1.1718.
Against the Japanese yen, the dollar weakened 0.2% to
159.39.
In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin fell 0.43% to $77,588.59.
Ethereum declined 0.34% to $2,318.56.
U.S. benchmark Treasury yields dipped on hopes that U.S.-Iran
peace talks could take place over the weekend, bolstering
confidence that the war could be close to ending.
The yield on U.S. 10-year notes fell 0.9 basis
points to 4.314%, from 4.323% late on Thursday.
The 30-year bond yield rose 0.4 basis points to
4.9224% from 4.918% late on Thursday.
The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step
with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, fell
4.7 basis points to 3.778%, from 3.825% late on Thursday.
Gold advanced but remained on track for its first weekly
loss in five weeks as war-related inflation worries persisted.
Spot gold rose 0.58% to $4,719.31 an ounce. U.S. gold
futures rose 0.36% to $4,722.20 an ounce.
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Intel
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