Wall Street Daily (April 8): US stocks traded in a narrow range on Tuesday, 'defensive during the day and relief after-hours'; following the announcement of a two-week ceasefire, risky assets quickly repriced, with oil prices plummeting and Bitcoin surging

Summary: Against the backdrop of unresolved geopolitical tensions, US stocks closed narrowly mixed on Tuesday. The S&P 500 rose by 0.08%, Nasdaq climbed 0.10%, Dow Jones fell 0.18%, and Russell 2000 gained 0.17%. The VIX surged to 25.78, up 6.66% in a single day. The key phrase capturing market sentiment remains 'defensive during the day, relief after-hours.' Market activity was initially weighed down by Trump’s deadline for Iran, keeping investors cautious overall, with stability only returning at the close. In major asset classes, the US Dollar Index dropped by 0.99%, while gold jumped 3.92%. After-hours, news of a two-week ceasefire triggered a 13.80% collapse in crude oil prices, while Bitcoin rose 4.09%, signaling more intense repricing of risk assets overnight.

I. Major Events

1. Trump’s deadline weighed on the market’s daytime trading

The core trading narrative during Tuesday’s session remained Trump’s deadline for Iran. Due to uncertainty over whether the US would expand its strikes or if Iran would concede, investors preferred to tighten their positions and reduce risk exposure. As a result, indices were nearly flat, with the Dow retreating slightly while small-cap stocks barely stayed positive, reflecting that funds had not shifted to an offensive stance but were merely maintaining relative restraint in a high-volatility environment.

2. Two-week ceasefire confirmed after-hours, leading to rapid repricing of risky assets

What truly brought new information and drove changes in risk pricing was the progress on the ceasefire after the close. Trump postponed strikes on Iran’s civilian infrastructure before the deadline, pressing pause under the condition that 'Iran accepts a two-week ceasefire and the Strait of Hormuz is reopened'; subsequently, Iran accepted the two-week ceasefire arrangement. Following the news, crude oil prices dropped sharply, S&P futures strengthened, and risk appetite notably improved during Wednesday’s Asian trading session.

3. Apple's decline + Google's strength continued to show structural divergence in the technology sector.

The technology sector did not form a unified upward or downward force on Tuesday. Apple fell by 2.07%, making it the weakest performer among the seven major tech stocks, while Google rose against the trend by 2.11%. This indicates that capital is not simply withdrawing from the technology sector but making internal trade-offs, prioritizing relatively more stable platform-weighted stocks. Due to this divergence, although the Nasdaq ultimately closed slightly higher, the technology mainline cannot be said to have regained market control.

II. Major Trends

What was more noteworthy on Tuesday was not that the index ultimately closed almost flat, but that the market remained in a 'short-term recovery, medium-term unresolved' phase. Over the past two weeks, SPY rose by 0.92%, and QQQ rose by 0.79%, indicating that most of the sharp declines caused by previous war and oil price shocks have been recovered. However, looking over a three-month period, SPY is still down 4.40%, and QQQ is down 5.68%, showing that the medium-term environment has not truly returned to favorable conditions. Meanwhile, IWM, RSP, and SPYV continued to outperform SPY and SPYG, suggesting that the market's dominant structure still leans towards small-cap, equal-weight, and value rather than top tech stocks driving the index alone. In other words, Tuesday’s narrow-range fluctuations resemble a pause during the recovery process rather than confirmation of a new one-sided upward movement.

III. Market Sentiment

The keyword for market sentiment remains 'defensive during the day, relieved after hours.' VIX closed at 25.78, rising inversely by 6.66% despite the index hardly moving, indicating that investors’ defense against tail risks further strengthened during the day. The latest available value of the CNN Fear & Greed Index was only 23, still in the fear zone, while the Put/Call ratio remained near the high of 0.9465, with demand for protective hedging not truly receding. Taken together, these three indicators suggest that Tuesday’s market was not without participation, but before the official ceasefire news landed, there was reluctance to switch prematurely from caution back to optimism.

IV. Market Scan

1. Index ETFs

Index ETFs continue to reflect a 'slightly stronger small-cap, weaker traditional blue-chip' structure. IWM rose by 0.22%, the strongest among core index ETFs, while DIA fell by 0.19%, remaining at the bottom. This combination shows that funds did not significantly withdraw from high-elasticity directions on Tuesday, nor did they rush to spread risk to more traditional, larger-cap blue-chip assets.

2. Sector Performance

The divergence at the industry level was even clearer. The energy sector rose by 0.80%, indicating that the intraday market was still pricing around high oil prices and geopolitical uncertainty; staples fell by 1.69%, becoming the weakest sector, and discretionary also dropped by 1.16%, showing profit-taking in both the consumption chain and defensive sectors. Overall, no single mainline emerged in the industry on Tuesday, with repeated tugs between 'benefiting from high oil prices' and 'demand concerns.'

3. Seven tech giants

Strength within the seven major tech stocks was also split. Google rose by 2.11%, making it the strongest performer of the day, while Apple fell by 2.07%, becoming the weakest, with Meta and Microsoft essentially trading near their sideways levels. This structure suggests that the technology sector did not re-enter a unified offensive just because the index held onto gains; instead, funds were rebalancing internally amid high volatility, prioritizing retaining more stable platform-weighted stocks and avoiding short-term exposure to high-valuation hardware chains more susceptible to sentiment shocks.

4. Chinese Equities

The China-related direction was generally weak, failing to keep up with the US stock market's modest stabilization in the late session. Futu fell by 0.09%, already the most resilient name on the whitelist; Alibaba fell by 2.12%, and PDD Holdings dropped by 1.36%, indicating that funds remained cautious about Chinese internet assets. This means that China-related stocks currently resemble a weak consolidation rather than an independent risk-preference mainline.

5. Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin rose by 4.09%, gaining clear risk appetite support after the post-market ceasefire news was released. Among related concept stocks, RIOT surged by 4.96%, indicating renewed elasticity in mining stocks, but MSTR fell by 3.11%, reminding the market that complete consensus for upward momentum had not formed within the crypto chain. Overall, the direction of crypto assets on Tuesday leaned strong, but the linkage of concept stocks still carried some divergence.

$S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ $SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY.US)$ $NASDAQ 100 Index (.NDX.US)$ $Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ.US)$ $Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI.US)$ $State Street® SPDR® Dow Jones Industrial Average® ETF Trust (DIA.US)$ $Russell 2000 Index (.RUT.US)$ $iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM.US)$ $Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS.US)$ $USD (USDindex.FX)$ $U.S. 10-Year Treasury Notes Yield (US10Y.BD)$ $iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT.US)$ $XAU/USD (XAUUSD.CFD)$ $SPDR Gold ETF (GLD.US)$ $CBOE Volatility S&P 500 Index (.VIX.US)$ $Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ $BTC/USD (BTCUSD.CC)$ $Ethereum (ETH.CC)$ $ETH/USD (ETHUSD.CC)$ $iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA.US)$ $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ $Meta Platforms (META.US)$ $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ $Alphabet-C (GOOG.US)$ $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ $Apple (AAPL.US)$

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