US stocks: US market ends up on Iran war peace deal hopes, SpaceX’s historic debut

U.S. stocks ended higher on Friday afternoon as investors held out hope for a peace deal between Iran and the United States and as SpaceX shares surged in their debut, making it Wall Street’s biggest public listing in history. The United States and Iran signalled that an agreement to end their war was ‌close, with a ⁠senior U.S. ⁠administration official saying a draft proposal was in place that was liked by both sides. U.S. President Donald Trump has said several times since mid-March that a deal with Iran to end the war was close. Market participants were glued to shares of Elon Musk’s SpaceX , which began trading on the Nasdaq on Friday. Its shares rose above the IPO price of $135 apiece, valuing the company at more than $2 trillion.

Shares of other space stocks, which have soared in the lead-up to the debut, eased on Friday, including Rocket Lab , Intuitive Machines and Planet Labs.

The reported progress in peace talks helped ⁠to lift sentiment, ‌said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“There’s still hope for a peace deal. Trump called off the attacks … Third parties are confirming a peace deal is happening.”

That puts pressure ⁠on oil prices and reduces worries about higher inflation and interest rates, he said.

Investors were also looking ahead to next week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting, which will be the first under the leadership of Kevin Warsh.Also Read | World’s first trillionaire: SpaceX premium debut briefly hands Elon Musk historic status According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 gained 36.30 points, or 0.51%, to end at 7,431.83 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 77.77 points, or 0.30%, to 25,887.43. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 353.42 points, or 0.71%, to 51,208.20. U.S. equity funds saw their first weekly outflow in three weeks, and earlier this week the technology index confirmed a correction. Analysts believe some of the weakness in U.S. stocks and bitcoin’s fall last week ‌could be due to traders trimming holdings ahead of SpaceX’s debut. SpaceX is now ranked among the biggest publicly listed U.S. companies.

Mike Dickson, head of research and quantitative strategies at Horizon Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina, said he was surprised by the lack of ⁠volatility in SpaceX so far, given the hype around the IPO. Shares of Tesla, another Musk company that trades at a premium to its earnings, ended higher.

Only about 3% to 4% of SpaceX’s shares are expected to be available for trading, with a large allocation to retail investors.

IPOs of AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic are also highly anticipated later in the year. SpaceX, which also includes Starlink and xAI, has already defied some Wall Street conventions.

Some analysts have voiced caution, however, over the fundamentals of the company, which posted more than $4 billion in annual losses last year.

Among the day’s decliners, Adobe slid after the exit of CFO Dan Durn.