New York's three major stock indexes ended mixed as hopes revived that the United States and Iran will hold a second cease-fire negotiation.
On the 24th (U.S. Eastern time) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 79.61 points, or 0.16%, to close at 49,230.71.
By contrast, the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 rose 58.68 points to 7,165.08, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 398.09 points, or 1.63%, to 24,836.60 at the close of transactions. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq both hit a record high during the session.
Earlier, the White House said Steve Witkoff, the White House Middle East envoy, and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's eldest son-in-law, are set to go to Islamabad, Pakistan, on the morning of the 25th for talks with Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was also reported to be arriving in Pakistan late that night for the negotiations.
Islamabad was where the first face-to-face meeting between the two countries took place on the 11th–12th. At the time, the two sides held 21 hours of cease-fire negotiations but failed to narrow differences, and the talks collapsed.
On the news, semiconductor stocks surged amid hopes for a cease-fire. Intel's strong results lifted earnings expectations across the chip sector. Intel jumped $15.79, or 23.64%, to $82.57.
AMD, which effectively splits the CPU (central processing unit) market with Intel, rose $42.48, or 13.91%, to $7.81, and Nvidia soared $8.63, or 4.41%, to finish at $208.87. In particular, Nvidia surpassed the record high of $207.04 set on Oct. 29 last year, marking a new all-time high.
Big Techs were mostly strong as well. Alphabet rose $5.51, or 1.63%, to $344.40, and Microsoft (MS) gained $8.87, or 2.13%, to close at $424.62. Amazon jumped $8.91, or 3.49%, to end at $263.99, and Meta Platforms added $15.88, or 2.41%, to $675.03.
Tesla rose $2.58, or 0.69%, to $376.30, and Palantir added $1.52, or 1.07%, to close at $143.09. Apple, by contrast, fell $2.37, or 0.87%, to end at $271.06.