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Stock Market News, April 17, 2026: Dow Jumped, Oil Tumbled After Iran Declared Strait Open WSJS&P 500 notches first close above 7,100, Nasdaq posts longest win streak since 1992: Live updates CNBCStrait Up — Heard on the Street Friday Recap WSJStocks Extend ‘Astonishing' Rally as Middle East Tensions Ease Further The New York Times
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Wall St Week Ahead Surging record-high US stocks to wade deeper into earnings season ReutersStocks Extend ‘Astonishing' Rally as Middle East Tensions Ease Further The New York TimesS&P 500 notches first close above 7,100, Nasdaq posts longest win streak since 1992: Live updates CNBCStock Market News, April 17, 2026: Dow Jumped, Oil Tumbled After Iran Declared Strait Open WSJ
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Corporate executives with a front-row seat on the economy are broadcasting a bullish message and drowning out Iran war noise.
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Also in Weekend Reads: Options-trading tactics, software stocks and a spousal Social Security switch.
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After two years of shipping delays and rising delivery costs, relief is in sight. By the end of the year, a marked improvement will be seen compared with a year ago.
The numbers of new drivers and trucks have picked up, easing constraints, though chassis shortages will likely continue into 2023. Spot market rates for trucks, excluding fuel surcharges, have dropped 30% from their peak earlier this year. They should decline a bit more, ending 2023 about 5% above their prepandemic level, according to Avery Vise, Vice President of Trucking at FTR Transportation Intelligence. Contract rates are typically slower to respond, and should ease to 17% above their prepandemic level by the end of 2023. Also, diesel prices are still 65% above prepandemic, so fuel surcharges will continue to be higher than normal. However, if a recession happens next year, then both volumes and rates will tumble.
SEE MORE 5 Stocks Making the Most of Supply-Chain Issues
Congestion at East Coast ports should ease in the next few months as a new labor contract is likely to be signed for West Coast dockworkers, allowing more vessels to return to using West Coast ports. Ship traffic from Asia is easing as 70% of retailers shipped early this year ahead of the holiday season, after getting burned last year, according to Ken Hoexter, a managing director at Bank of America. Ocean freight rates from China to the West Coast have fallen to $3,900 per 40-foot container, though that is still $2,500 more than the prepandemic average.
Rail freight is the problem child, according to Todd Tranausky, vice president of rail & intermodal at FTR. Freight has been moving at slower than normal speeds this year because of crew staffing shortages. Prior to the pandemic, the railroads embarked on a cost-cutting and labor-saving spree, reducing the wor
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Stocks jumped out of the gate Friday after the release of the August jobs report. But enthusiasm from the few investors that stuck around ahead of the long holiday weekend didn't last, with all three indexes ending in the red.
SEE MORE Hedge Funds' 21 Top Blue-Chip Stocks to Buy Now
The Labor Department this morning said the U.S. added 315,000 new jobs in August, well below July's 526,000. Also in the jobs report: the unemployment rate edged up to 3.7% from 3.5%; the labor participation rate, or the number of people actively seeking work, improved to 62.4% from 62.1%; and average hourly earnings - a key measure of labor cost inflation - was up 5.2% year-over-year, same as it was in July.
"Friday's jobs data provided some moderate relief, with payrolls almost landing precisely on consensus at 315,000 in August," says Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets." While no doubt a solid advance - and completely inconsistent with recession chatter - other aspects of the report sent some calming signals." Porter points to steady wage growth, an increasing labor force and the rising unemployment rate that suggest "the extreme tightness in the job market may be beginning to moderate - almost exactly what the Fed doctor ordered."
Still, the major indexes, after being up more than 1% each around lunchtime, swung lower in afternoon trading after news reports indicated Russian energy giant Gazprom will indefinitely suspend operations of a natural-gas pipeline to Germany.
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By the close, the Nasdaq Composite was down 1
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