Stock Market Today (LIVE): Wall Street Opens Cautiously as Strong Jobs Report and Iran Deadline Set the Tone for the Week
Today’s Highlights
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Top of the Morning
10:05 am
By Jim Gillies
I like a good annual letter out of a company. The problem is, most companies don’t really give you more than “Rah-Rah!” platitudes in their annual communiques, if they give one at all. I want talk of the business, the problems they’ve been facing, the mistakes made – real communication, in other words.
The gold standard for many years was, of course, the annual letter penned by Berkshire Hathaway‘s (BRKB +0.24%) Warren Buffett, but there are others worth mentioning – from Fairfax Financial (FFH +1.55%), to Nelnet (NNI +0.14%), to Brookfield (BN +0.10%)(BN 0.20%) to or even tiny (I doubt anyone outside of Fool Canada has heard of them) Decisive Dividend (DE +2.12%).
To this, add JP Morgan (JPM +0.85%) CEO Jamie Dimon’s annual letter, even though I don’t read it because I’m particularly interested in the stock of bank he heads up. Rather, I like to get his insights into the state of the world and a more “macro” viewpoint.
9:35 am
By Nick Sciple
Team Rule Breakers
It’s starting to feel like Groundhog Day. Five weeks after the first U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. Oil continues to surge well above $100 per barrel. And President Trump is still dishing out ultimatums, claiming the war will be over soon. He said “very shortly” on April 1. He said “very soon” on March 9. The talking points haven’t changed. The strait hasn’t opened. Physical barrels of Dated Brent touched $141 on April 2, the highest since 2008.
Opening Bell
9:30 am
The S&P 500 remained nearly flat Monday as investors weighed competing reports of a potential 45-day ceasefire against a Tuesday night deadline set by President Trump. While Pakistan-brokered terms for an immediate end to hostilities have reached both sides, Trump warned on Truth Social that “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day” in Iran if the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked. West Texas Intermediate crude eased to $110 per barrel as traders balanced these peace hopes with the threat of escalated strikes. This session also marks the first opportunity for the Nasdaq to react to Friday’s blowout jobs report, which showed 178,000 positions added, nearly triple the consensus.
JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. This article was created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool’s insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. Nicholas Sciple has positions in Nelnet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Berkshire Hathaway, Brookfield, Brookfield Corporation, Decisive Dividend, Fairfax Financial, JPMorgan Chase, and Nelnet. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.