Records in the Window. War in the Mirror.

Records in the Window. War in the Mirror.

The S&P closed at 7,165 Friday — an all-time high. WTI gained 13% on the week. The Strait is still shut. Witkoff flies to Islamabad Saturday. This is where markets are when a war doesn't end but doesn't escalate either.

By Hunter William Lang · Markets Correspondent

FRI APR 24 2026

Five days. Two ship seizures. A ceasefire extension. A Tesla earnings beat. A ServiceNow subscription miss that named the blockade as the culprit. Witkoff and Kushner wheels-up to Islamabad Saturday morning to try what three weeks of shadow diplomacy couldn't accomplish. And through all of it — through the IRGC communiqués and the Truth Social posts and the Iranian foreign minister's tour of Muscat and Moscow — the S&P 500 closed the week at yet another record high.

That's not irrational. That's a market that has done the math: Q1 earnings are running at 84% beat rate with 15.1% blended year-over-year growth. The AI capex cycle is accelerating faster than even the most bullish models projected. Tech sector is up 11% this month alone. Against that earnings torrent, even a shut Hormuz can't stop the bid — as long as the ceasefire holds and the strait stays at status quo rather than escalating to hot conflict.

The risk isn't the war going the same. The risk is the war going somewhere new.

Week-in-Review: Closing Tape

S&P 500

7,165.08

+0.80% Fri / ATH

Nasdaq

24,836.60

+1.63% Fri / ATH

Dow Jones

49,230.71

−0.16% Fri

WTI Crude

$94.40

+13% on week

Brent

$105.33

+11.4% on week

10-Yr Yield

4.31%

2-Yr: 3.78%

VIX

18.71

−3.1% Fri. Complacent.

Gold

$4,740.90

+0.36% Fri

Dollar (DXY)

98.36

Modest strength

The Week Day by Day

MON APR 20

Cautious open after three-week rally. Geopolitical optimism fades as no formal Hormuz resolution materializes. Futures weak; equities open mixed. Asia-Pacific broadly lower on Iran drag. Nasdaq holds.

TUE APR 21

S&P futures reverse sharply higher after Trump posts ceasefire extension on Truth Social, citing Iran's "seriously fractured" government and Pakistan's request to hold attacks. WTI $89 intraday. Warsh confirmation hearing watching list grows.

WED APR 22

Iran IRGC seizes two container ships pre-market. WTI jumps above $93. Brent clears $101. Markets open anyway — S&P +1.05% to 7,137.90 (ATH). Tesla reports after close: EPS $0.41 vs $0.37 expected. Revenue $22.39B in-line. Pop 4%, then fades on $5B capex overage disclosure.

THU APR 23

Software sector punished. IBM −7.5% (maintained guidance, didn't raise). ServiceNow −13% (subscription miss; explicitly blamed Hormuz disruption on enterprise deals). S&P dips 0.41% to 7,108.40. Nasdaq −0.89%. Meta confirms 10% workforce reduction — ~8,000 jobs — ahead of mega-cap earnings next week.

FRI APR 24

Recovery and records. Witkoff-Kushner Pakistan trip confirmed. Iran's Araghchi en route to Islamabad/Muscat/Moscow. Market reads it as progress. S&P +0.80% to 7,165 (ATH). Nasdaq +1.63% to 24,836 (ATH). Crude eases to $94.40 (−1.5%) on talk hopes. VIX −3.1% to 18.71. Week 4 of consecutive market record highs.

Week's Winners & Losers

▲ Winners

TSLA+6.8% WTD

GOOGL+4.2% WTD

NVDA+3.9% WTD

ARM+3.1% WTD

XLE (Energy ETF)+2.1% WTD

▼ Losers

NOW−13.4% WTD

IBM−7.5% WTD

META−4.2% WTD

NFLX−3.8% WTD

XLV (Health Care)−0.9% WTD

"We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history."

— Fatih Birol, IEA Executive Director, Thursday

The IEA's Birol said that Thursday. The VIX closed at 18.71 Friday. One of those readings is wrong, or the market has simply decided that "biggest energy security threat in history" is already fully priced and the question now is duration, not magnitude. The IEA isn't wrong — 20 million barrels per day flowed through Hormuz before the war. Almost none flow now. Iraq's oil revenues collapsed more than 70% versus February. That's not a statistic the global economy absorbs without consequence.

What makes this week so instructive is where the earnings casualties showed up first. Not in energy. Not in airlines. In enterprise software. ServiceNow's subscription miss — driven by Middle East clients pulling enterprise IT contracts amid conflict uncertainty — is the canary. When geopolitical disruption starts hitting B2B software renewal rates, the damage is spreading from the obvious (energy, shipping) to the non-obvious (digital infrastructure). That's a different conversation than crude oil.

Q1 Earnings Week Scorecard

Company	EPS Actual	EPS Est.	Beat?	Stock Reaction
TSLA	$0.41	$0.37	Beat	+4% AH → faded
IBM	Beat top/bottom	—	Beat	−7.5% (guidance)
ServiceNow	Beat EPS/Rev	—	Beat	−13% (sub miss)
S&P 500 (blended)	+15.1% YoY growth	—	84% beat rate	6th consec. dbl-digit Qtr

Company

EPS Actual

EPS Est.

Beat?

Stock Reaction

TSLA

$0.41

$0.37

Beat

+4% AH → faded

IBM

Beat top/bottom

—

Beat

−7.5% (guidance)

ServiceNow

Beat EPS/Rev

—

Beat

−13% (sub miss)

S&P 500 (blended)

+15.1% YoY growth

—

84% beat rate

6th consec. dbl-digit Qtr

The headline number is a record. The internals are more complicated. Dig one layer below the S&P all-time high and you find 5 of 11 sectors closed the week lower. Small-caps outperformed both major indexes — that's not a typical momentum rally, that's a rotational one. Value beat growth modestly. International stocks traded lower even as U.S. equities hit records. That divergence — U.S. outperforming globally even as it runs an oil-dependent blockade war — says something about dollar flows and AI premium more than it says about the health of the global economy.

The ServiceNow number is the week's most important data point that most people missed. Enterprise software missing on subscription revenue because clients in the Middle East conflict zone are pausing contracts is the first direct earnings evidence of the blockade's second-order effects. IBM maintained guidance — fine — but ServiceNow's management explicitly named the war. That's an entirely different category of company than an airline or a tanker operator. When conflict starts hitting cloud renewal rates in the enterprise, the addressable damage map gets a lot bigger.

Weekend risk is elevated heading into Saturday's Pakistan talks. Either Witkoff gets a framework that signals strait reopening — bullish, oil dumps, bonds rally — or talks stall again and Monday opens with WTI retracing the week's dip back above $95. The ceasefire extension buys time. It does not buy resolution. That distinction matters more each week the blockade holds.

Week Ahead — Apr 27 to May 1

MONApr 27

Pakistan talks outcome — Witkoff/Kushner results leak over weekend. Market opens on this headline.

Bank of Japan policy meeting begins — Rate decision Wednesday. Yen sensitive.

TUEApr 28

Consumer Confidence (Conference Board)

Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon, Meta, Microsoft all report after close — Mega-cap earnings night. AI capex read will define the week's narrative.

WEDApr 29

Apple (AAPL) earnings after close — First earnings under post-Cook succession discussion. CEO transition commentary watched.

BOJ rate decision

ADP Employment

THUApr 30

Q1 GDP Advance Estimate — First look at U.S. growth. Consensus sub-2%. Stagflation indicator if PCE is also hot.

Initial Jobless Claims

PCE Price Index — The Fed's preferred inflation gauge. A hot print alongside soft GDP = stagflation headline risk.

FRIMay 1

Nonfarm Payrolls — Labor market read in a stagflation context. Critically important for Fed path.

ISM Manufacturing PMI

⬡ Weekly Takeaway

This week was the market making its case. The case is: earnings are better than feared, AI capex is accelerating faster than modeled, and the ceasefire extension — however imperfect — keeps the worst tail risk (hot escalation) off the table. The S&P doesn't lie about that. 7,165 is 7,165.

The counter-case is assembling quietly in the background. Oil gained 13% on the week — the most since early March. The IEA called it the largest energy security threat in history. An enterprise software company named the blockade as the reason its clients aren't renewing contracts. The yield curve is steepening on stagflation anxiety. PCE and GDP both drop Thursday. If they confirm what the commodity markets have been pricing — energy-driven inflation into slowing growth — the week-after-next changes the conversation fast.

Enjoy the records. Watch the Thursday data. And don't let VIX at 18 convince you this is a settled situation.

FinTrend News and its contributors are not licensed financial advisors. Nothing in this publication constitutes investment advice, a solicitation to buy or sell any security, or a recommendation to take any specific financial action. All market data referenced reflects conditions at the time of writing and may change materially. Readers should conduct their own research and consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decision.