We're so back.

The S&P 500 SPX climbed to fresh record highs on Wednesday, tallying its first finish above the psychologically important 7,000 threshold, as investors cheered the fact that a seemingly shaky cease-fire between the U.S. and Iran appeared to be holding - even if the number of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz remained well below preconflict levels.

Investors were hopeful on Wednesday that a deal to permanently end the fighting would soon be reached, and stocks touched session highs shortly after the White House confirmed that another round of peace talks would be held in Islamabad.

In the meantime, the focus has shifted to the strong backdrop for corporate earnings and the U.S. economy more broadly, said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments.

"I think we've reached escape velocity," Ladner told MarketWatch during an interview on Wednesday.

Whether the index has room to move higher remains to be seen. Daniel O'Regan, an equity trader at Mizuho Americas, pointed out in commentary shared with MarketWatch that the 7,000 level has reliably served as a resistance level for the index for the past four months. He reckoned investors would need to see a solid break higher during the overnight session for these gains to really stick.

Here are a few key factoids investors should keep in mind, courtesy of Dow Jones Market Data:

-- The S&P 500 index snapped a streak of 53 trading days without a record close, the longest such stretch since the 88-day streak ending June 27.

-- It marked just the fifth record close of 2026.

-- The index is up for three days straight.

-- It has gained 2.1% since the start of the conflict.

Investors still have good reason to be nervous. Oil prices have yet to retrace their gains from March, and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains well below levels from February, according to data from Kpler.

But there have been plenty of positive developments as well. With that in mind, here are five more charts investors should be watching.

Breadth has been strong - but not that strong

The rebound from the March selloff has been strong - but stock-market breadth hasn't been quite as propulsive as what investors witnessed coming out of the April 2025 tariff tantrum.

As the above chart shows, the share of S&P 500 stocks making new 20-day highs hasn't quite reached the levels seen back then. This suggests that this rebound might be on shakier footing than what investors witnessed last year following the April tariff tantrum, said Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Sandler.

"There is still some pain beneath the surface," he said.

"Tech continues to power the market higher," Louis Navellier, chief investment officer at Navellier & Associates, said in emailed comments Wednesday. "Mega Tech is not concerned about oil prices."

A momentum-led rebound

"It has also been another momentum-led rebound, similar to last year's explosive rally," Ed Yardeni, founder of Yardeni research, said in a note shared with MarketWatch Tuesday night.

Yardeni pointed out that exchange-traded funds focused on momentum stocks have outperformed the S&P 500 in April. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 has outperformed its equal-weighted sibling - a sign that Big Tech stocks are doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

The Invesco S&P 500 Momentum ETF SPMO, which tracks stocks in the index that have a high momentum score, has surged 12.9% this month through Wednesday, according to FactSet data.

"We are seeing some massive unwinds under the hood as popular longs get sold hard while laggards, heavily shorted names, and meme stocks rip," Mizuho's O'Regan said in commentary shared with MarketWatch.

The S&P 500 has heavy exposure to a relatively small group of Big Tech stocks with massive market value, and its biggest sector, by far, is information technology. The U.S. equities index is staging "yet another V-shaped buy-the-dip recovery," according to Yardeni Research.

Options traders are giving chase

Options traders have swung from extremely bearish on stocks to extremely bullish in a very short time. Evidence for this can be found in the Cboe index put-call ratio, which dropped to its lowest level since 2019 on Tuesday as traders piled into bullish call options.

"In this context, the low put/call ratio likely reflects reduced demand for downside hedging and systematic call-selling, rather than panic-driven buying or a meaningful bullish shift in market risk appetite," said Ben Kizemchuk, a senior investment adviser and portfolio manager at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, in response to questions shared via email by MarketWatch.

"Put simply, this suggests less demand for protection on the downside among institutions, and more willingness to sell upside exposure, rather than chasing recent gains or signaling a major change in overall market confidence," he said.

Stocks went from oversold to overbought

Perhaps no metric better illustrates the speed of the S&P 500's turnaround over the past two weeks than the 14-day relative strength index.

The indicator is used by technical analysts to gauge momentum. Readings above 70 typically signal the index has reached "overbought" territory, while readings below 30 represent "oversold." The RSI stood at 69.3 as of Wednesday's close.

A team of analysts at Bespoke Investment Group said the index's trip from oversold to overbought territory over the past two weeks has been among the fastest such transitions on record. Forward returns after previous rapid turnarounds have leaned positive, the Bespoke analysts said in written commentary.

S&P 500 valuations are moving higher

Even before the Iran conflict began, popular valuation metrics tied to the S&P 500 were starting to decline as the index moved sideways, while Wall Street analysts continued to raise their expectations for how much money the index's member companies would earn over the next 12 months.

The index's rebound has caused its forward price-to-earnings ratio, a popular valuation metric, to rise off of its March lows. As of this week, it was slightly higher than its five-year moving average.

U.S. stocks finished mostly higher on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite COMP climbing, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA ended slightly lower.