By Martin Baccardax

U.S. stocks completed a 600-point round trip journey from pre-Iran war levels to the lows of late March this week, putting the S&P 500 just a few points short of its all-time high and in what looks to be the fastest market rebound since the Covid pandemic.

Stocks have powered nearly 10% higher over the past ten trading sessions, according to data from Deutsche Bank, marking a faster pace of recovery than during last year's Liberation Day recovery and largely matching a stretch of gains recorded during the spring of 2020.

A host of factors combined to provide the boost, which now has the S&P 500 back to within striking distance of its late January peak, including hopes of an end to the seven-week war, slumping global crude prices, a muted reading of wholesale inflation pressures, and progress in bringing Federal Reserve Chair nominee Kevin Warsh's confirmation hearing to the Senate floor .

Adding in a solid start to the first-quarter earnings season, a March jobs report that showed surprising labor market resilience, and the tailwind from record tax refunds tied to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and investors seem more than happy to put the larger Iran war concerns behind them.

"So as far as the stock market is concerned, the war is over until further notice," said Ed Yardeni, founder and president of Yardeni Research. "It has been yet another V-shaped buy-the-dip recovery in the S&P 500 and another buying opportunity arising from a geopolitical crisis."

Not everything is responding in unison, however. Energy stocks are getting left behind, and software stocks remain stuck in a historic selloff that has dragged the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF down 32% from its late September peak. It's still 2.6% south of its prewar close on Feb. 27, as well.

Wall Street's broader outlook remains unchanged, though, with a consensus price target of around 7700 points for the S&P 500 by the end of the year.

How that bet plays out in the face of elevated oil prices, which may take at least a year to return to prewar levels, based on current futures pricing, and the likely effect of faster inflation and slower growth they inject into the global economy remains to be seen.

The International Monetary Fund drew up three scenarios for that very condition in its annual spring update on Tuesday, and warned that the worst of the trio could slash growth prospects and make it a "close call for a global recession" in 2027.

Global fund managers aren't seeing that risk, based on Bank of America's closely tracked survey, but they are worried about stagflation and taking some of their money out of riskier assets.

"Expectations are cooling faster than fundamentals are collapsing," Saxo Bank's chief investment strategist, Charu Chanana, said of the survey. "That leaves the market in an uncomfortable but potentially constructive middle ground: cautious enough to be defensive, but not so fearful that it cannot respond to better news."

That description chimes with where markets are positioned if the lens is widened to a six-month view: stocks are just a 70 points higher than they were on Oct. 29, when Facebook parent Meta Platforms spooked investors with capex plans that dwarfed Wall Street forecasts and raised larger questions over the sustainability of the artificial intelligence boom.

Those haven't been completely resolved, of course, nor has the issue of tariffs, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said could return in a different form this summer following the Supreme Court's decision on President Donald Trump's use of emergency powers earlier this year.

But with war risks seemingly on the wane, and corporate America growing profits at a double-digit pace, investors are seeing few reasons to miss out on the market's springtime momentum.

Write to Martin Baccardax at martin.baccardax@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 15, 2026 07:34 ET (11:34 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.