U.S. Stock Market Close: Major Indices Mixed, Investors Remain Concerned Ahead of the Holiday

Caixin Media, April 3 (Editor: Niu Zhanlin) On Thursday in U.S. Eastern Time, the three major U.S. stock indexes closed mixed, after having sharply dipped at one point during the trading session and then narrowed their losses. With Middle East releasing some signals of diplomatic easing, market sentiment stabilized somewhat; earlier, investors had grown uneasy after U.S. President Trump threatened to take a tougher stance toward Iran.

According to reports, Iran and Oman are drafting an agreement aimed at implementing “passage supervision” for the transport of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, while also emphasizing that it will not restrict ships from transiting. At the same time, the U.K. said that dozens of countries are discussing plans to end the crisis. These developments ease concerns in the market that global oil supply could be cut off for the long term.

Before this, oil prices had risen, triggering nervous market sentiment, as Trump hinted that he might take more aggressive military action, along with the impending Good Friday holiday (U.S. stocks will be closed on Friday).

The prices of crude oil futures for near-term delivery surged sharply. U.S. WTI crude rose 11% to about $111 per barrel; the international benchmark Brent crude closed up about 7%, nearing $108 per barrel. However, traders priced October oil at roughly $82 per barrel, indicating that the market expects any supply disruption to be temporary.

Oil price volatility has become the core driver of violent swings in global equity markets. Since the outbreak of the war, equities have faced overall downward pressure, and market moves have frequently fluctuated sharply in line with Trump’s remarks about the war’s progress.

Baird market strategist Michael Antonelli said: “Right now, the stock market lacks a clear direction, but the October oil price is being priced in a way that reflects the market’s view that this crisis is likely to end before autumn.”

Notably, tension has resurfaced in the private credit market. Blue Owl set redemption limits for two of its funds, restricting investors’ withdrawals.

In a report, LPL Financial’s chief technical strategist Adam Turnquist said: “For the market, the longer the conflict in the Middle East lasts, the greater the sustained pressure it exerts on inflation, global economic growth, interest rates, and equity valuations.”

Friday’s nonfarm payrolls data will become the focus. While the number of initial jobless claims fell early last week, the U.S. market will be closed throughout the long weekend, so this report may be overlooked.

Market Update

As of the close, the Dow fell 61.07 points, down 0.13%, to 46,504.67; the Nasdaq rose 38.23 points, up 0.18%, to 21,879.18; and the S&P 500 index rose 7.37 points, up 0.11%, to 6,582.69.

Of the 11 sectors in the S&P 500, the real estate sector closed up 1.48%, the information technology/tech sector rose 0.73%, the energy sector rose 0.46%, the health care sector fell 0.68%, and the consumer discretionary sector fell 1.49%.

Most U.S. industry ETFs closed higher. The network stock index ETF rose 1.33%, the technology sector ETF rose 0.82%, the energy industry ETF rose 0.47%, the semiconductor ETF rose 0.09%, and the consumer discretionary ETF fell 1.50%.

Performance of Popular Stocks

Large-cap tech stocks ended mixed. Microsoft rose 1.11%, Nvidia rose 0.93%, Apple rose 0.11%, Amazon fell 0.38%, Google A fell 0.54%, and Meta fell 0.82%.

Tesla’s stock price plunged 5.4%. The company’s first-quarter 2026 delivery data came in below Wall Street expectations. This marked the company’s second consecutive quarter failing to meet market estimates, reflecting ongoing challenges facing the auto business.

Globalstar shares surged 13.4%. Earlier, there were reports that Amazon is in talks to acquire this low-Earth-orbit communications satellite company.

Airlines and other travel-related companies performed poorly. United Airlines fell 3%, and Carnival Cruise Line fell 3.5%.

Popular Chinese concept stocks finished mixed. The leading index for Chinese concept stocks in the U.S. fell 0.72%. Tencent Holdings ADR, JD.com, and Alibaba fell by more than 1%. Chawang Tea House rose by more than 10%, and NIO and Trip.com rose by more than 1%.

Company News

[Blue Owl Funds Encounter Large-Scale Redemptions]

The trust crisis in the U.S. private credit industry is still spreading. On Thursday local time, Blue Owl Capital sent a letter to shareholders stating that two of its private credit funds are facing a surge in redemption requests. Blue Owl said its flagship fund OCIC (managed assets of about $36 billion) received redemption requests totaling about 21.9% of the issued shares in the first quarter; meanwhile, the smaller OTIC fund, focused on the technology sector, saw a redemption-request ratio of as high as 40.7% over the same period. For both funds, Blue Owl chose to set the actual redemption ratio cap at 5%. The company attributed the abnormal increase in redemption applications to “heightened concerns in the market that artificial intelligence (AI) could disrupt software companies.”

[H100 Leasing Fees Published by Nvidia Four Years Ago Jumped Nearly 40% in Nearly Half a Year]

According to a “H100 one-year leasing contract price index” released by semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis on Thursday, the leasing contract price for this “old chip” rose sharply from reaching $1.7 per hour in October 2025 to $2.35 per hour per GPU in March this year, up nearly 40%. The index is built from direct survey data compiled once a month, covering more than 100 cloud service providers plus buyers and sellers of computing power resources. The latest report notes that on-demand rented GPU computing capacity has sold out across all types of GPUs—even though prices have risen recently, customers who have already locked in on-demand instances are unwilling to release that computing capacity back into resource pools. The institution also likened it to trying to book tickets for the “last departing flight” for finding GPU computing capacity at the beginning of 2026: the price is high, and there are almost no available resources.

[Amazon’s Middle East Cloud Computing Center Attacked, More Infrastructure Becomes a Target]

On Thursday local time, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it carried out an attack on an Amazon cloud computing center located in Bahrain in retaliation for U.S. military actions earlier. In an IRGC statement, it said: “This operation is the first practical warning issued to the enemy. If the relevant warnings are ignored and assassination actions continue, we will impose even harsher punishment on the next batch of named companies. At that time, the full responsibility for the complete destruction of these companies in the region will be borne by the U.S. President personally.”

[SpaceX Could Sprint Toward a $2 Trillion Valuation, Surpassing Meta and Tesla]

Sources familiar with the matter said that SpaceX has raised its target valuation for its initial public offering to above $2 trillion. These sources said the company and its advisers are sharing this valuation target with potential investors as preparation for meetings in the coming weeks. Earlier reports from foreign media said these so-called “testing-the-waters” briefing sessions may include more information supporting the valuation. In February, it was reported that after SpaceX acquired Musk’s xAI, the combined company’s valuation was $1.25 trillion. At a $2 trillion valuation, SpaceX would surpass all companies in the S&P 500 except Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Microsoft, and Amazon, and would also exceed two of the seven U.S. mega-cap companies—Meta and Tesla, which is under Musk’s own company.