By Teresa Rivas

The stock market has now delivered a year's return in about two weeks. While that might not be quite as impressive as all summer in a day, it's been enough to provide a genuine reset for investors.

The "end" of the Iran war spurred a market celebration this week, even if the conflict is nowhere near officially over. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was on track to advance 3.7% for the week, while the S&P 500 index was rising 4.5% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 6.6%. The latter two hit multiple record closing highs throughout the week.

But forget the week -- the market's April returns are even more impressive. In just 12 trading days this month, the Nasdaq is up double digits, and the S&P 500 has added more than 8%. That might look ho-hum after the past three years' bull run, but 8% is well above the average inflation-adjusted annual return of the index since the 1950s.

Markets may be excused their excitement. News that the Strait of Hormuz was fully open on Friday morning sent oil prices tumbling, and a permanent agreement would likely allow energy prices to fall further, easing inflation and removing geopolitical uncertainty to boot.

With the U.S.-Iran conflict in the market's rearview mirror, investors are once again free to place "more focus on fundamentals with earnings season unfolding," notes CIBC Head of Equity and Portfolio Strategy Christopher Harvey.

Second-quarter earnings season has just started, and already there's a lot to like. Big banks got off to a relatively good start this week, and that followed Delta Air Lines' positive results the previous one. What's more, overall earnings expectations and forecasts are moving up across sectors, providing a tailwind for stocks.

More than half of S&P 500 companies are raising guidance, noted Talley Leger, chief market strategist at the Wealth Consulting Group, while consensus estimates now call for the index's earnings per share to rise more than 13% from last year, "on track for a sixth straight quarter of double-digit growth."

Netflix was an exception to the good feelings, slumping after its earnings on Thursday. But the real Big Tech headliners -- Google parent Alphabet, Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Apple -- don't start reporting until next week. Moreover, tech as a whole is once again expected to deliver the lion's share of profit growth, with earnings per share set to gain more than 40% year over year.

Yes, those earnings reports could reignite worries about how much Big Tech companies are spending on artificial intelligence. They were the cause, after all, of the sector's weak performance at the start of the year. And for good reason. "Investors are struggling to understand what AI means to long-term corporate profitability, so stock valuations are shifting in almost equal proportion between near-term winners and those companies with less certain long-term prospects," notes DataTrek co-founder Jessica Rabe. "That level of discernment is both warranted and healthy."

For now, however, peace sells -- and the market is buying.

Write to Teresa Rivas at teresa.rivas@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 17, 2026 14:43 ET (18:43 GMT)

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