S&P 500, Nasdaq close at record highs, cap best quarter in over a year
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The S&P 500 and Nasdaq reached record closing highs on Monday, capping their best quarter in over a year as hopes for trade deals and possible rate cuts eased investor uncertainty.Both indexes ended the quarter with double-digit gains. The S&P 500 gained 10.57% during the period, the Nasdaq rose 17.75%, and the Dow climbed 4.98%. The Russell 2000 Small Cap index rose 8.28% in the quarter. Still, the three main indexes posted their weakest first-half performances since 2022, as the uncertainty around trade policy has kept investors wary during the year, with tensions peaking after President Donald Trump disclosed widespread tariffs on April 2.Trade deals with China and the UK have fueled optimism that an all-out global trade war can be minimized, with hopes for more deals to be reached before Trump's July 9 trade deadline.The end of the quarter was also influenced by managers tweaking their portfolios to look more attractive at quarter-end."Animal spirits seem to have taken hold here," said Roy Behren, co-president of Westchester Capital management fund. "It is also quite common for the last couple of days of a quarter to see strength because of the window dressing." On Sunday, Canada scrapped its digital services tax targeting U.S. tech firms, just hours before it was due to take effect, in a bid to advance stalled trade negotiations with the United States. But U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned on Monday that countries could still face sharply higher tariffs on July 9 even if they are negotiating in good faith, and any potential extensions will be up to Trump. Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Republicans will try to pass Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill, despite divisions within the party about its expected $3.3 trillion hit to the $36.2 trillion national debt. Trump wants the bill passed before the July 4 Independence Day holiday.Key economic data releases this week include monthly non-farm payrolls and the Institute for Supply Management's survey on manufacturing and services sectors for June.Several U.S. central bank officials including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell are scheduled to speak later this week.A raft of soft economic data and expectations that Trump will replace Powell with someone dovish have pushed up bets of rate cuts from the Fed this year.On Monday, nine of the 11 S&P indexes closed up. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 275.50 points, or 0.63%, to 44,094.77, the S&P 500 gained 31.88 points, or 0.52%, to 6,204.95 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 96.28 points, or 0.48%, to 20,369.73. Shares of big U.S. banks rose after most cleared the Federal Reserve's annual "stress test," paving the way for billions in stock buybacks and dividends.Leading the S&P 500 were Hewlett Packard Enterprise, up 11.1 %, First Solar up 8.8 %,and Juniper Networks up 8.45 %."The current rally was driven by few heavyweight stocks that drove indexes up, giving the market a sense of optimism despite rising deficit and unresolved policy issues," said Cole Smead, CEO and portfolio manager of Smead Capital Management."The stock market doesn't seem to care at all, people think this party is going to go on forever," he said. "I think this game is over. It's just a matter of when and how bad it gets."Volume on U.S. exchanges was 17.12 billion shares, compared with the 18.23 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
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First Post
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West Asia: Can IMEC do what the Abraham Accords couldn't—deliver peace?
The Israel-Iran conflict is over, at least for the time being. The war in Gaza, however, rages on. Despite frequent attempts to get the warring parties to agree to a ceasefire, it remains elusive. The Donald Trump administration, with Egypt and Qatar as key interlocutors, had recently proposed another ceasefire of 60 days. While initial reports suggested that Israel has agreed to the contours of the ceasefire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his statements later, denied it, and Hamas is yet to take a call on it. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The positions of Israel and Hamas in it are acutely divergent. While Hamas is looking at a complete end to the war accompanied by full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, Israel is looking for the release of its hostages with no guarantees on ending the war till Hamas is totally removed from Gaza. With this being the case, an early ceasefire in Gaza looks unlikely. Meanwhile, the ceasefire between Israel and Iran has opened doors for American diplomacy in the region. Expansion of the Abraham Accords is being seen as the preferred instrument in it. There are inputs that Lebanon and Syria could be next to join the Abraham Accords now that they are effectively out of the Iranian sphere of influence. With the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, the Al Shaara-led regime has suddenly become the favourite in Washington. Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (previously Abu Mohammad al-Joulani with ISIS and Al-Qaeda links) was welcomed in the White House with open hands, economic sanctions on Syria are being removed, and there are economic packages being worked out to help rebuild Syria. The same is the case in Lebanon, where the government has assured the US and Israel that Hezbollah will not be allowed to regain strength in South Lebanon. Concurrently, efforts to restart the normalisation process between Israel and Saudi Arabia are being pursued. In fact, well before the Israel-Iran conflict broke out, President Trump visited Saudi Arabia and the West Asian region in May 2025 as his first visit abroad after taking over the presidency. Despite a successful visit in which a Saudi investment of almost $600 billion was promised, no headway could be made as far as normalisation of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia is concerned, with the Gaza war and the Palestine issue remaining key sticking points. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD If the normalisation with Saudi Arabia does not move forward, the entire project of Israel being mainstreamed into the West Asian region will remain an unfinished project. It may be recalled that one of the primary reasons for the outbreak of the Gaza war was the process of this normalisation which was nearing fruition in September 2023. In the last week of September 2023, Israeli Tourism Minister Haim Katz became the first Israeli minister to head an official delegation to Saudi Arabia to take part in a conference of the United Nations Tourism Organisation. He was soon followed by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi on October 3, leading an Israeli delegation to the Universal Postal Union's 2023 Extraordinary Congress. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), as well as Israel's PM Netanyahu, also spoke publicly of the deal, the contours of which indicated that Saudi Arabia would have gotten a defence pact with the US as well as a nuclear program. Israel was to offer 'assurances' to the Palestinian groups, but there would be no clear outcome on the two-state solution. If Saudi Arabia and Israel had established formal diplomatic relations without a permanent solution to the Palestine issue, it would have dealt a death blow to the struggle of the Palestinians. Before any more progress on normalisation could take place, the war broke out on October 7, triggered by the Hamas terror attack into Israel. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In the Gaza war as well as the recent Israel-Iran conflict, Saudi Arabia had to join other Arab/Muslim nations in the region to strongly condemn Israeli strikes into Gaza as well as the unilateral strikes on June 13, violating the territorial integrity of Iran. In such a situation, it is very unlikely that Saudi Arabia will relent soon and move towards normalisation. Any major expansion of the Abraham Accords is therefore likely to remain remote in the near future except, possibly, adding Lebanon and Syria to it. What can then be the path towards peace and economic progress in the region? Can economy and connectivity work where diplomacy is currently facing headwinds? Here is where the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) comes into the picture. 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Time of India
36 minutes ago
- Time of India
US-India trade pact: Markets brace for July 9 tariff deadline; Q1 earnings, FII flows to drive sentiment
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Economic Times
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'Exchanges are not meant to chase profits' Live Events Sebi vs Jane Street Stock exchanges under scrutin (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel Veteran investor Shankar Sharma has raised sharp questions about the role of Indian stock exchanges in the recent Jane Street controversy, suggesting that profit motives may have prevented timely action against the global trading a post on X (formerly Twitter), Sharma questioned why the exchanges did not act sooner against Jane Street, even though they are among the first to receive trading alerts.'How come the stock exchanges never sanctioned Jane Street? They are the very first to get such alerts,' Sharma wrote. 'How can they sanction JS when it drives F&O volume massively, hence SE profits?'Sharma, who has often criticised the structure of listed exchanges, renewed his call for a rethink of their role. According to him, exchanges function as quasi-regulators and should operate like public utilities — not profit-driven corporations.'I have long held that exchanges should NEVER get listed. They are a regulator. Profit motive creates endless conflict of interest,' he wrote. 'SEs should be a utility, not for-profits. Simple as that. Nahi to, suffer all this hanky-panky.'On Friday, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) passed an interim order accusing Jane Street, a U.S.-based proprietary trading firm, of using high-frequency trading strategies to manipulate index levels such as the Nifty 50 and Bank alleged that Jane Street pushed up index values in the morning by buying stocks and futures, only to reverse those trades later in the day, thereby influencing expiry-day pricing of options in its favour. The regulator said this allowed the firm to generate profits of over Rs 43,000 crore in index options, while deliberately incurring losses in the futures and equities has frozen Rs 4,843 crore in what it described as 'unlawful gains' and barred Jane Street and its entities from accessing the Indian securities market until further its order, Sebi mentioned that stock exchanges had issued caution letters to Jane Street in the past. However, it remains unclear what further steps, if any, the exchanges took before Sebi stepped in with enforcement remarks have drawn attention to this issue, especially since one of the two major exchanges—BSE—is a listed entity, while National Stock Exchange (NSE) remains unlisted but operates as a for-profit matter has sparked a broader debate about the role of exchanges in maintaining market integrity, particularly when sophisticated trading strategies and high-volume players are involved.
