Investing.com — Wall Street on Friday ended higher, with the spotlight on the blockbuster U.S. listing of South Korea’s , which closed nearly 13% above its offering price on the Nasdaq.
Markets also advanced for the first full trading week of July, helped by a rebound in chip stocks, with traders largely looking past the biggest escalation in tensions between the U.S. and Iran since they inked an interim peace deal last month. President Donald Trump reiterated that Tehran had asked for a continuation of talks, though he also said a ceasefire between the two sides was over.
The benchmark S&P 500 index climbed 0.4% to finish at 7,573.79 points, the tech-heavy gained 0.3% to settle at 26,281.61 points, and the blue-chip added 0.3% to conclude at 52,637.09 points.
“The story of the day was clearly (SK Hynix), which spent the bulk of the day trading around its opening price. More than half the ADRs turned over on the first day, meaning that there was a solid consensus about the initial price and market reaction once it began trading,” Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, told Investing.com.
“Otherwise there were not many catalysts. Markets seemed relatively unconcerned by the President’s comments that the ceasefire was over and instead preferred to focus on the idea that talks would be continuing. Bond yields drifted slightly higher, but not enough to cause concern,” he said.
“Quite frankly, it’s a quiet summer Friday. There’s an old saying, ’don’t short a dull tape,’ which implies that low volume days are more likely to drift higher than lower. That is what we see today,” Sosnick added.
For the week, the S&P improved 1.2% and the Nasdaq 1.7%. The Dow slipped 0.5%.
Biggest ever U.S. listing by a foreign company
A new trillion-dollar firm became available for trading for U.S. investors on Friday, after South Korean tech giant SK Hynix debuted on the Nasdaq. The company offered 17.79 million shares represented by American depositary shares, with each ADS standing for one-tenth of a common share. After pricing the shares at $149 and subsequently raising $26.5 billion in the biggest U.S. listing by a foreign firm, SK Hynix opened at $170, and finally ended 12.8% higher at $168.01.
SK Hynix, larger rival Samsung Electronics, and U.S. company are the biggest manufacturers of conventional Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) chips used in computers and to power artificial intelligence processes. Soaring demand for the latter in particular after the AI boom has led to a supply crunch and surging prices for memory and for computing power.
According to research firm Counterpoint, SK Hynix held the number two and number one spot in the global DRAM and HBM market share, respectively, in Q1 2026. The South Korean firm is also one of AI chip behemoth ’s biggest suppliers of HBM. The Jensen Huang-led company’s stock rose 4%, helped by SK Hynix’s blockbuster debut. Meanwhile, Micron shares fell 1.2%.
Mediators try to calm tensions between Washington and Tehran
Turning away from SK Hynix and looking at the Middle East, Oman and Pakistan, two of the chief mediators between the U.S. and Iran, called for a de-escalation after the warring sides exchanged strikes this week in the biggest threat to an interim memorandum of understanding (MoU) inked in mid-June.
In retaliation for attacks on three commercial oil tankers in and around the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military over Tuesday and Wednesday launched strikes at approximately 170 targets in Iran, including air defense systems, missile and drone storage sites, and more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats. Iranian armed forces responded by striking U.S. military bases in the region, according to state media.
Meanwhile, President Trump ramped up his rhetoric against Iran after the strikes, saying that a ceasefire between the two was “over” and that he didn’t want to deal with them anymore. The U.S. leader on Wednesday, however, said that Iran had called and wanted “to make a deal so badly.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue ’talks.’ We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!” Trump said on his Truth Social service on Friday.
Oman’s foreign ministry said it spoke to Iran’s and “both sides affirmed the necessity of halting military escalation and working to formulate peaceful political solutions that take into account the interests of all parties, ensure freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of commercial shipping and the supply of energy through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he spoke to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and “discussed the evolving regional situation and underscored the imperative of restraint, dialogue and diplomacy to safeguard the hard-earned peace gains of recent months.”
“I reaffirmed Pakistan’s readiness to continue playing its role as an honest and sincere mediator for lasting regional peace,” Sharif added.
Market participants perceived Trump’s comments about Iran wanting to make a deal and the efforts by the mediators as a sign that neither Washington nor Tehran wanted to further escalate matters or return to full-fledged combat.
“The muted stock market reaction to the re-escalation of Iran tensions this week is prime evidence that the market is looking past geopolitical tensions. From a stock market point of view, the stock market already reacted to the Iran situation in March and similar to last year’s tariff tantrums, once the market reacts to something, it tends to move on in due time,” Clark Bellin, president and chief investment officer at Bellwether Wealth, said.
Focus turns to next week’s inflation data
Wall Street’s attention is now shifting to key U.S. inflation indicators scheduled for next week. The consumer price index (CPI) report for June will arrive on Tuesday, followed by producer price index (PPI) data for the same month on Wednesday.
Annual increases in the headline CPI and PPI in May hit their highest since April 2023 and November 2022, largely due to the effect of spiking oil prices from the Iran war. However, inflation dynamics have rapidly shifted since, with crude prices sliding back to pre-war levels until this week’s escalation. Consequently, analysts believe the May readings were likely a peak.
“Inflation pressures eased for households in June thanks primarily to retreating gasoline prices. We estimate the CPI declined 0.2% over the month amid a ~10% drop in the price of energy goods. Food prices, however, are likely to have moved higher after a subdued May reading. Earlier increases in energy and transportation costs are still working their way through supply chains, while recently announced grocery price cuts won’t leave a mark on the data until July,” analysts at Wells Fargo said.
The minutes of the Federal Reserve’s June 16-17 meeting published earlier this week showed an evenly divided debate between policymakers on the outlook for interest rates. The minutes, along with the Fed’s report to Congress published on Friday, also showed that policymakers remained concerned about inflationary pressures arising not just from the Middle East conflict, but also from AI-related demand and tariffs.
Meta surges, Delta slips
Looking at Friday’s active movers, surged 6% and ended as the top percentage gainer on both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.
The Facebook-parent’s stock was helped by a combination of a release of a new AI model, a pivot to a paid developer model, and a Reuters report from Thursday that said the tech giant was looking to start production of a custom AI chip in September and was planning to double its computing power to 14 gigawatts next year.
A Bank of America analysis of the Reuters report found that, based on the internal memo viewed by the news agency, Meta’s expected cost for the buildout would be much lower than previously estimated.
Elsewhere, slipped 1.8%, despite the number one U.S. carrier delivering a quarterly top- and bottom-line beat. The airline has been pressured by rising fuel costs.
Ayushman Ojha and Pranav Kashyap contributed to this article