Dow closes up 600 points as Trump claims talks held with Iran
Photo taken on Aug. 12, 2024 shows the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange NYSE in New York, the United States. (Liu Yanan/Xinhua via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Dow Jones Industrial average closed up more than 600 points on Monday after President Donald Trump claimed “productive conversations” had been held between the United States and Iran.
The major stock indexes each soared more than 2% in early trading but gave up some of those gains as a flurry of headlines about the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran elicited price fluctuations.
The peace talks — which Iranian officials denied — sent the price of oil plunging on Monday on hopes that negotiations could reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end a weeks-long global energy shock.
The Dow closed up 631 points or 1.3%, while the S&P 500 jumped 1.1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq increased 1.3%.
Each of the indexes remained below where it stood before the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began on Feb. 28.
A selloff cascaded across global markets in recent weeks as stockholders feared economic fallout from a potentially prolonged bout of elevated oil prices.
Global oil prices plunged more than 10% on Monday after Trump made his claim about ongoing negotiations with Iran. Still, the price of oil stood above $100 a barrel, marking a steep rise since the outbreak of war.
Trump, after postponing U.S. strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure citing new negotiations with Tehran, said on Monday that talks will continue and that there are “major points of agreement.”
According to Iranian state media, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Qalibaf said, “no talks with the U.S. have taken place; reports claiming otherwise are fake news aimed at influencing financial and oil markets and distracting from the challenges facing the U.S. and Israel.”
A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, April 6, 2026. Signs of last-ditch efforts to secure a truce in the war that has rattled global markets spurred a cautious advance in stocks as oil retreated. (Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Stocks closed significantly higher on Wednesday, just hours after the U.S. and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire.
The Dow Jones Industrial average surged 1,325 points, or 2.8%, while the S&P 500 climbed 2.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 2.8%.
As part of the accord, Iran says it will allow tankers passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route for oil and gas, as long as they coordinate with the nation’s military.
Investors appeared optimistic that the agreement would ease one of the worst global oil shortages in decades, though the resumption of tanker traffic in the strait remained uncertain.
U.S. oil prices plummeted nearly 15% on Wednesday, registering at about $96 a barrel. Still, the price of oil remained well above pre-war levels of about $67 a barrel.
President Donald Trump touted the ceasefire in a social media post on Wednesday, saying there would be “no enrichment of Uranium,” despite the Iranians claiming that the U.S. agreed to its plan, which includes numerous concessions.
The president added that “the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear ‘Dust.'”
The Iranian Supreme National Security Council’s statement on Tuesday included “acceptance of enrichment” in its 10-point plan.
Investors will likely pay close attention to a potential uptick in tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Following Israeli attacks on Lebanon on Wednesday, oil tankers are suspended from passing through the strait, Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency reported.
Typically, scores of ships carry a fifth of the world’s oil through the strait each day, but Iran effectively closed the passage over the course of the war. That oil shortage sent crude prices soaring, and it threatened far-reaching price increases that some economists feared could tip the U.S. economy into a recession.
ABC News’ David Brennan, Jon Haworth and Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump attends the signing ceremony of the Peace Charter for Gaza as part of the 56th World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 22, 2026. (Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Mortgage rates whipsawed in recent weeks as markets reacted to a flurry of policies from the Trump administration.
It began with a major milestone. Mortgage rates earlier this month fell below 6% for the first time in nearly three years, according to a data released by Mortgage News Daily.
“The progress stems directly from President Trump’s aggressive agenda to restore the American Dream of homeownership,” the White House touted in a statement on Jan. 12. The Trump administration cited its announcement days earlier, calling on government-sponsored mortgage lenders to purchase $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities.
Within little more than a week, however, mortgage rates had climbed to 6.21%, responding to rattled bond markets and erasing the previous reduction. The uptick came as Trump issued a tariff threat to European allies over his demands to acquire Greenland at the time. When Trump backed off of that levy soon afterward, mortgage rates fell but remained above previous lows, Mortgage News Daily data showed.
The volatility in mortgage rates underscored the risks posed by recent trade tensions, which threaten to push up Treasury yields and, in turn, drive mortgage rates higher, some analysts told ABC News.
Still, they added, mortgage rates will likely face downward pressure this year from anticipated interest-rate cuts at the Federal Reserve, and Trump may take further steps of his own to reduce borrowing costs.
“President Trump is certainly not sitting back and doing nothing,” Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, told ABC News.
“Some of it is big things on the international front, which are potentially destabilizing. And there’s an attempt to do anything and everything for the affordability of housing,” Wachter added.
To be sure, average 30-year mortgage rates have dropped from 7.08% to 6.17% since Trump took office, according to Mortgage News Daily. That drop-off owes in part to a post-pandemic cooldown of inflation, which allowed the Federal Reserve to begin lowering interst rates.
In a social media post earlier this month, Trump said lower mortgage rates would “make the cost of owning a home more affordable. It is one of my many steps in restoring Affordability.”
Mortgage rates closely track the yield on a 10-year Treasury bond. Since bonds pay a given investor a fixed amount each year, the specter of inflation risks higher prices that would eat away at those annual payouts. In turn, bonds often become less attractive in response to economic turmoil. When demand falls, bond yields rise.
U.S. Treasury yields jumped last week in the aftermath of Trump’s tariff threat over Greenland, which appeared to presage a possible trade war with several European allies.
The 10-year Treasury yield climbed as high as 4.3% in the aftermath of Trump’s threat, before dropping steadily down to 4.21% as Trump withdrew the levy and backed negotiations over Greenland, MarketWatch data showed.
As tensions rose in response to Trump’s tariff threat, some major U.S. bondholders in Europe appeared poised to sell. A Danish pension fund, AkademikerPension, said last Tuesday it would unload U.S. treasuries by the end of the month. It remains unclear whether other European bondholders will follow suit, especially after Trump’s reversal on tariffs.
If a substantial share of U.S. bondholders were to sell off their assets, it would slash demand and push up bond yields, some analysts said.
Since 30-year mortgage rates and other key interest rates track the yield on 10-year treasury bonds, a selloff of treasuries could bring about higher monthly payments for home loans, Raymond Robertson, a professor of trade, economics and public policy at Texas A&M University, told ABC News.
“It’s a pretty big concern,” Robertson said.
Marc Norman, associate dean at the New York University School of Professional Studies and Schack Institute of Real Estate, said bondholders are evaluating the reliability of U.S. government debt.
“Basically, it’s a bet on the U.S. government,” Norman told ABC News. “If that becomes unstable and people lose trust, it could have a big effect.”
Despite the uptick in mortgage rates in recent weeks, borrowing costs for homebuyers remain markedly lower than where they stood a year ago.
Analysts attributed the drop to a series of interest rate cuts at the Fed, as well as Trump’s order calling on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities. After the order, Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, instructed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to up their bond investments in an effort to put downward pressure on mortgage rates, the Associated Press reported last week.
By ordering a federal agency to buy up some mortgage-backed securities, the Trump administration helped increased demand for the underlying loans, which pushed bond yields lower, Wachter said.
“This mortgage bond proposal is not a big move but it makes a difference,” Wachter added. Wachter said she expects mortgage rates to fall further over the course of this year, though she acknowledged ongoing risk: “Investors don’t like uncertainty.”
Still, Wachter said, “If you’re looking to buy a home, today is as good a day as any.”
If homebuyers move forward with a purchase but later find that mortgage rates have continued to fall, they can opt to refinance their homes. “The old saying is, ‘You marry the home and you date the mortgage,'” Wachter said.
A 2024 tax year 1040 form. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Tax season kicked off this week as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service began allowing filers to submit completed tax forms.
Americans can file anytime before April 15. The IRS said earlier this month that it expects more than 164 million individual tax returns to be filed by that deadline.
Refunds are typically sent within 21 days, the agency says. For paper returns, the IRS says turnaround time can last more than four weeks.
Some tax filers can avail themselves of new options associated with the “One Big Beautiful Bill” enacted last year.
“Tax season 2026 brings some of the most significant tax code changes we’ve seen in years,” Alison Flores, director of the Tax Institute at H&R Block, said in a statement.
“The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ makes some rules permanent, introduces new ones, and creates a complex mix of deductions and credits that will impact the take-home pay of nearly every American,” Flores added.
For the first time, taxpayers can enroll in so-called Trump accounts, deposits of $1,000 made by the federal government for every baby born between 2025 and 2028.
Filers can enroll through elections on IRS Form 4547 as part of their tax return. Families can contribute up to $5,000 each year, while employers can contribute up to $2,500 annually for each employee.
Seniors, meanwhile, may opt for a new $6,000 tax deduction — or $12,000 for a married couple — as part of an effort to ease the tax burden for older Americans, the IRS said.
Tipped workers can deduct up to $25,000 in “qualified tips” as part of the “No Tax on Tips” initiative. The IRS defines eligible tips as those that involve “voluntary cash or charged tips received from customers, including shared tips,” according to the agency’s website.
Taxpayers who received overtime pay last year may also deduct such income in accordance with a “No Tax on Overtime” effort. Filers may deduct up to $12,500 or $25,000 for joint filers, the IRS said.
Car-loan interest may also be deducted, though the policy does not apply to lease payments. The maximum annual deduction for car-loan interest is $10,000, the IRS said, but the option is unavailable for individuals who report $100,000 or more in gross income.
Standard deduction limits increased this year, allowing filers to shield larger sums from taxes. On its website, the IRS spells out the new deduction amounts available at different income levels.
Up to nearly three in 10 Americans waits until the last minute to file their taxes, according to a 2024 survey by IPX 1031, a tax advisory firm. That amounts to tens of millions of people.
Taxpayers can typically file an extension that lasts six months, meaning those who obtain an extension will be allowed to submit their tax forms without penalty until Oct. 15.
If a filer forgoes an extension and files late, the person risks additional fees for the tardy submission. The penalty amounts to 5% of the taxes owed for each month that the filing is late, up to a maximum of 25%.
Under such circumstances, the IRS mails a letter or notice alerting the filer of a late fee.
