{"id":146120,"date":"2026-04-30T11:24:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gapp-oil.com.ar\/?p=146120"},"modified":"2026-05-04T11:25:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T14:25:50","slug":"stocks-end-april-on-a-high-even-as-oil-prices-touch-new-peak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/2026\/04\/30\/stocks-end-april-on-a-high-even-as-oil-prices-touch-new-peak\/","title":{"rendered":"Stocks End April on a High, Even as Oil Prices Touch New Peak"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The S&P 500 ended April at a fresh record high, with investors balancing concerns that the\u00a0war in Iran<\/a>\u00a0could lead to longer\u00a0disruption of fuel supplies<\/a>\u00a0from the Middle East against strong corporate earnings and data showing continued economic growth.<\/p>\n

Investors were buoyed on Thursday after a report showed modest economic growth in the United States for the first three months of the year, boosted by investment in the infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Corporate earnings reports have also shown strong growth at the start of 2026. On Wednesday, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta said they had spent a collective\u00a0$130 billion<\/a>\u00a0on data centers.<\/p>\n

The S&P 500 rose 1 percent on Thursday, taking its gain in April to over 10 percent \u2014 its best month since November 2020. The benchmark index also posted its fifth straight week of gains for the first time since fall 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The exuberance among stock investors is in sharp contrast to the turmoil in energy markets. On Thursday, oil prices briefly hit their own wartime peak, as the naval blockade of Iran\u2019s ports showed no signs of ending.<\/p>\n

President Trump<\/a>\u00a0has maintained his stance that the blockade will persist until Tehran gives up its\u00a0nuclear program<\/a>. Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, peaked at a four-year high of over $120 per barrel on Thursday, before pulling back to a loss for the day in volatile trading.<\/p>\n

The average price of regular gasoline in the United States has followed oil higher, hitting $4.30 a gallon on Thursday, up 27 cents in a week, according to data from the AAA motor club.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarkets are being pulled in opposing directions as surging oil prices and geopolitical risks weigh on sentiment, while strong tech earnings and A.I. optimism provide support,\u201d Bob Savage, the head of markets macro strategy at BNY, wrote in a research note.<\/p>\n

After the Federal Reserve\u00a0held interest rates<\/a> steady on Wednesday, Jerome H. Powell, the central bank\u2019s chair, said that policymakers needed to be \u201cvery cautious\u201d about their next steps, given the significant uncertainty about the economic outlook.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re very well aware that people are experiencing higher gas prices all over the country now,\u201d Mr. Powell said. \u201cAnd that hurts.\u201d He added that if energy costs remained high, the effects could filter through to airfares and other products and services dependent on oil. \u201cPeople are going to start to feel that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Higher energy prices and the lingering effects of Mr. Trump\u2019s tariffs are expected to keep\u00a0inflation<\/a>\u00a0elevated through the rest of the year, according to Bernard Yaros, the lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. \u201cInflation will get worse before it improves,\u201d he wrote in a research report.<\/p>\n

He added that it can take several months for the effects of energy shocks to hit the economy by weighing on job growth. \u201cThe labor market remains in a fragile \u2018low-hire, low-fire\u2019 equilibrium that risks being upset as the uncertain impacts of the war play out further,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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How High Are Gas Prices Where You Live?<\/h2>\n

Here is a county-level look at where drivers are facing the highest costs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The World Bank estimated that the war in Iran would push\u00a0energy prices<\/a> up 24 percent this year, according to a broad index covering oil, gas and coal. As a result, the outlook for economic growth has \u201cdampened materially,\u201d the institution noted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe war is hitting the global economy in cumulative waves: first through higher energy prices, then higher food prices and finally, higher inflation, which will push up interest rates and make debt even more expensive,\u201d Indermit Gill, chief economist of the World Bank, said this week.<\/p>\n

The conflict has threatened growth in countries with fledgling recoveries. In Europe, the economy of the 21 countries that use the euro grew just 0.1 percent in the first quarter of the year, down from 0.2 percent growth at the end of last year, data published on Thursday showed.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0European Central Bank<\/a>\u00a0and Bank of England held interest rates steady on Thursday. But the central bankers made clear they were facing hard decisions for how they would weigh the jump in inflation against the risk of an economic slowdown when setting interest rates in the future.<\/p>\n

Over the past two weeks, the price of Brent crude has risen about 30 percent. The price of Brent for June delivery, a soon-to-expire contract that investors trade based on their expectations for where prices will be in the near future, briefly traded above $126 a barrel, the highest since 2022. It then whipsawed back to $114.01 a barrel, a decline of more than 3 percent for the day. A barrel of Brent traded for $72 just before the war.<\/p>\n

Part of the sharp rise on Thursday came from the expiration of the Brent contract for June, meaning it was the last chance for traders to secure oil for delivery in a month\u2019s time. However, Brent\u2019s July contract, which traded at around $110, as well as contracts for the months after, remain elevated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, eased slightly to $105.07 a barrel.<\/p>\n

Investors and analysts are focused on the continued disruption to shipping in the\u00a0Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil supply. Consumers are starting to feel the ripple effect from the energy supply crunch, putting a strain on the\u00a0U.S. economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

American households have received larger tax refunds this year because of a giant tax cut passed last year, cushioning the blow of higher energy costs. But the recent rise in gasoline prices has already soaked up about half of the increase in those refunds, according to analysts at Bank of America.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless there is relief at the pump, the \u2018gas tax\u2019 should start to weigh increasingly on the consumer in coming months,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The S&P 500 ended April at a fresh record high, with investors balancing concerns that the\u00a0war in Iran\u00a0could lead to longer\u00a0disruption of fuel supplies\u00a0from the Middle East against strong corporate earnings and data showing continued economic growth. Investors were buoyed on Thursday after a report showed modest economic growth in the United States for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"novedades-gapp-noticias":[],"lineas-trabajo-noticias":[],"industrias-noticias":[394],"mercados-noticias":[445],"class_list":["post-146120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","industrias-noticias-oil-gas","mercados-noticias-medio-oriente"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146121,"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146120\/revisions\/146121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146120"},{"taxonomy":"novedades-gapp-noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/novedades-gapp-noticias?post=146120"},{"taxonomy":"lineas-trabajo-noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lineas-trabajo-noticias?post=146120"},{"taxonomy":"industrias-noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industrias-noticias?post=146120"},{"taxonomy":"mercados-noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gapp-oil.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mercados-noticias?post=146120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}