Ceasefire Euphoria Sends Dow Up 1,325 Points — But 800 Ships Are Still Stuck in the Strait

This week's market narrative basically wrote itself: a last-minute US-Iran ceasefire agreement — brokered, of all people, by Pakistan — sent the Dow up 1,325 points, the S&P 500 up 2.51%, and oil to its biggest single-day drop since COVID. The top Dow gainers told the whole story — $SHW, $CAT, $HD, and $GS all surged on bets that falling oil means falling rates means housing thaws out. Meanwhile $XOM got obliterated, down 6% of global production in a single session. Brutal day to be long crude.

Here's the catch: WTI is still sitting above $96/barrel — up roughly 40% from pre-conflict levels — and only 15 tankers are moving through Hormuz versus the 60-70 needed for normal flow. CIBC's Rebecca Babin says restoration takes 1-3 months minimum even in a best-case scenario. Wells Fargo's Schumacher went on camera to say markets are getting "too sanguine, too quickly" — and he's not wrong that bonds only recovered a third of their losses while stocks recovered two-thirds. That's a disconnect worth watching.

Bright spots in the chaos: $LEVI dropped a genuinely good earnings report — 9% organic growth, 14% reported, Beyoncé and Rosé from Blackpink driving brand heat, and tops up 13%. $META gained 6.5% after debuting MuseSpark, its new closed-source AI model. And Tom Lee at Fundstrat is calling the S&P bottom in, targeting 7,300 by year-end. The bull and bear cases have never been louder at the same time — which, honestly, sounds about right for a war week in April.