Stocks Slip as Oil Prices Rise on Uncertainty Over US-Iran Ceasefire Talks

By  STAN CHOEWednesday April 22, 2026

Wall Street and oil markets lurched back and forth Tuesday as investors tried to gauge what comes next after the ceasefire in the war with Iran, which was due to expire Wednesday.

The S&P 500 surrendered an early gain and finished 0.6% lower after U.S. Vice President JD Vance canceled a planned trip to Pakistan, where he had been expected to lead American negotiators in talks with Iran aimed at extending the truce.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 293 points, or 0.6%, after at one point climbing as much as 400 points, while the Nasdaq composite lost 0.6%. Then, less than 10 minutes after the market closed, President Donald Trump said he would extend the ceasefire to allow Iran time to present a proposal for ending the war.

Oil prices were equally unsettled before Trump’s announcement. Brent crude, which had been trading below $95 a barrel, climbed to around $100 during the session before settling at $98.48, up 3.1%.

Even so, the day’s swings were far less severe than the violent moves that rattled markets earlier in the conflict, when Brent briefly surged above $119 a barrel and the S&P 500 fell nearly 10% below its previous record. U.S. stocks remain close to their latest all-time high, set Friday, a sign that investors still see room to avoid the most damaging economic consequences.

“It’s become cliched to say that the economic hit will depend on the duration of the Middle East conflict, but that cliché does ring true,” according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management.

Much of the market’s anxiety has centered on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage off Iran’s coast that oil tankers rely on to leave the Persian Gulf. If the waterway were shut for a prolonged period, crude could become trapped in the gulf and cut off from buyers around the world.

Helping cushion losses on Wall Street were UnitedHealth Group and other large companies that delivered stronger-than-expected profits for the latest quarter.

UnitedHealth rose 7% after also lifting its full-year 2026 profit forecast. That matters because share prices tend to track corporate earnings over time, and investors generally reward companies that not only beat estimates but also improve their outlooks.

Quest Diagnostics gained 4.4% after likewise posting higher-than-expected quarterly profit and raising its full-year earnings forecast.

Amazon added 0.7% after Anthropic said it had reached a new agreement and would spend more than $100 billion over the next 10 years on AWS technologies to train and operate its Claude chatbot.

Still, those gains were overshadowed by Apple’s 2.5% decline, which made it the biggest drag on the S&P 500 for the day. The stock fell in its first trading session after Tim Cook said he would step down as CEO on Sept. 1 and become the iPhone maker’s executive chairman.

Cook will hand the reins to John Ternus, a longtime Apple executive who worked his way up through the company’s hardware engineering division.

Tractor Supply sank 11.7% after reporting quarterly profit and revenue that missed analysts’ expectations.

In all, the S&P 500 fell 45.13 points to 7,064.01. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 293.18 to 49,149.38, and the Nasdaq composite lost 144.43 to 24,259.96.

Overseas markets were mixed. European indexes ended lower after a stronger session in Asia, where South Korea’s Kospi surged 2.7% in one of the largest moves among major markets.

In the bond market, Treasury yields moved higher after a Tuesday morning report showed U.S. retailers earned more in March, the first full month of the war, than economists had expected. Excluding sales at gasoline stations, retail revenue was also relatively steady.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.31% from 4.26% late Monday, and gains accelerated late in the session as oil prices pushed higher.

Kevin Warsh, Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Reserve, said he never promised Trump that he would lower interest rates, despite the president’s repeated and angry calls for the central bank to do so. Warsh faces a difficult confirmation process as senators weigh his nomination, while investors are watching closely to see whether he preserves the Fed’s independence from political pressure.