S&P 500 futures gain as oil declines, Intel shares pop: Live updates

S&P 500 futures rose slightly on Friday after President Donald Trump said that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend their ceasefire by three weeks.

Futured linked to the broad market index traded up 0.3%, while Nasdaq 100 futures added 1.2%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 45 points, or 0.1%.

Oil prices pulled back after Reuters reported, citing a government ‌source, that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi is expected to arrive in Islamabad Friday evening, offering hope to investors that peace talks between the U.S. and Iran would take place in Pakistan. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures dropped 1% to trade above $94 per barrel. International benchmark Brent crude futures slipped 0.7% to trade above $104 a barrel.

This comes on the heels of Thursday’s Israel-Lebanon ceasefire announcement from Trump, which followed a meeting at the White House with top U.S. officials, he said.

“The Meeting went very well!” the president wrote in a Truth Social post. “The United States is going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah,” he added, referencing the Iran-backed militia group.

The Middle East conflict has evolved into a naval standoff over the Strait of Hormuz as the U.S. and Iran have seized commercial ships. Trump said in a Thursday Truth Social post that he had ordered the U.S. Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” that is laying mines in the strait.

Given Thursday’s reversal from all-time highs for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite, headlines coming from the Middle East still can sway the market, even as traders attempt to look past the conflict and focus on corporate earnings reports.

The move higher in S&P 500 futures Friday was supported by Intel shares, which soared 19%. The chipmaker posted first-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street’s expectations and shared an upbeat forecast for its current quarter.

That adds to the rally semiconductor stocks have seen this week. On Thursday, the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) posted its 17^th positive session in a row and is now pacing to end the week with a 6% gain.

For the three major averages, however, the week is shaping up to be a losing one. The S&P 500 is on track for a 0.3% decline in the period, as is the Dow. The Nasdaq has fallen 0.1% this week.

Cameron Dawson, chief investment officer at NewEdge Wealth, said she expects the market’s leadership to remain constricted.

“This market continues to get narrower and narrower. And once, it was a story of all ‘Mag Seven’ doing well. Now it’s really just a story of semiconductors doing well,” she said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” on Thursday afternoon. “We are having the most cyclical sector in the world — being semiconductors — experiencing super normal growth. The stocks will deliver 100% earnings growth this year. The question is, how do you value that?”

“The real question is how the market digests the super normal growth and if it thinks it can actually continue,” Dawson added.