With the deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump for a massive air strike on Iran looming, the New York stock market showed mixed results.
On the 7th (local time), the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 46,584.46, down 85.42 points (0.18%) from the previous trading day. The Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 index rose 5.02 points (0.08%) to close at 6,616.85, while the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 21.51 points (0.10%) to close at 22,017.85.
Among the top technology stocks by market capitalization, Nvidia rose 0.26%, along with gains from Amazon (0.46%), Google parent company Alphabet (2.11%), Broadcom (6.21%), and Facebook parent company Meta (0.35%). On the other hand, Apple (-2.07%), Microsoft (-0.16%), and Tesla (-1.75%) declined.
The New York stock market maintained a cautious, wait-and-see posture from the start of trading ahead of the negotiation deadline proposed by President Trump. Earlier, on the 5th, Trump had set a negotiation deadline for Iran of 8:00 PM on the 7th (9:00 AM on the 8th, Korea time). He also warned that if negotiations fell through, he would launch a full-scale strike on energy facilities including power plants. On this day, Trump also posted on his social networking service Truth Social, warning, "An entire civilization will disappear tonight and will never come back," adding, "I don't want that to happen, but it probably will." He continued, "We have achieved a safe and complete regime change," and added, "A smarter and less radical way of thinking has taken hold, so perhaps something revolutionarily amazing could happen."
According to Fox News, U.S. forces attacked bunkers, radar bases, and ammunition storage facilities on Kharg Island that day. By not attacking energy facilities, this amounted to a show of force aimed at drawing out negotiations. U.S. forces also struck key Iranian bridges and railways, including the Tabriz-Tehran highway, a critical transportation corridor in northern Iran, as well as bridges on the outskirts of Qom in central Iran, railways in Qazvin in the north, and railways in Karaj west of Tehran. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that day that the U.S. and Middle Eastern mediators had attempted to first agree on a 45-day ceasefire before pursuing negotiations toward an end to the war, but both sides had made little progress.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued a statement that day threatening, "If the U.S. terrorist military crosses the red line, our response will extend beyond this region," and "We will attack infrastructure to prevent the U.S. and its allies from securing oil and gas in this region for years to come."
On the corporate front, U.S. semiconductor company Intel surged 4.19% on news that it would join "TeraFab" (a mega-scale semiconductor production facility), an AI chip production project led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Intel posted on its official X (formerly Twitter) account, "We are proud to participate in the 'TeraFab' project alongside SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla to refactor silicon fab technology." The company also posted a photo of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan shaking hands with Musk, saying, "It was a pleasure welcoming CEO Musk to Intel last weekend." Refactoring refers to the development process of enhancing semiconductor performance and reliability. TeraFab is a mega-scale semiconductor production base that Musk is pursuing to produce proprietary chips for use in AI, robotics, space data centers, and more. Another U.S. semiconductor company, Broadcom, saw its stock price rise more than 6% on news that it had signed a long-term contract to develop and supply custom chips for Google's next-generation Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).
International oil prices also showed divergent trends amid skepticism about the possibility of negotiations. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, WTI crude oil futures for May delivery closed at $112.95 per barrel, up $0.54 (0.48%) from the previous trading day. This is the highest price in three years and ten months. In contrast, Brent crude for June delivery on London's ICE Futures Exchange closed at $109.27, down $0.50 (0.46%).
"Mediation plan for ceasefire agreement after 45-day truce" — Is even a ceasefire impossible in the first place?
