Dow and Nasdaq Hit Records as Earnings Fuel Wall Street Rally

Wall Street kept climbing even as oil stayed elevated and war risks lingered, a split-screen rally that showed investors still willing to buy earnings strength and largely shrug off geopolitics for now. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.6% to a record on Wednesday, while the S&P 500 also finished at an all-time high.

The day’s biggest support came from corporate America’s latest earnings wave, led in part by GE Vernova. The power and electrification company released first-quarter 2026 results before the market opened and said chief executive Scott Strazik and chief financial officer Ken Parks would discuss the numbers in a 7:30 a.m. ET webcast. GE Vernova’s results helped reinforce a broader message on Wall Street: some businesses are still delivering fatter profits than analysts expected even after a long stretch of higher interest rates, sticky costs and uneven growth.

That resilience mattered because investors were not trading in a calm environment. Oil prices rose as worries persisted about the war involving Iran, and the uneasy ceasefire between the United States and Iran had already frayed earlier in the week. Concerns tied to the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial chokepoint for global energy flows, kept energy markets on edge and reminded traders that higher oil could yet feed into inflation and corporate costs.

Still, the market chose earnings over fear. GE Vernova said its business is serving a growing, long-cycle electric power market, and the company raised its annual forecasts for revenue and adjusted core profit margin on surging demand from data centers and grid infrastructure. That combination of stronger demand and better guidance gave investors fresh evidence that parts of corporate America are not only holding up, but improving.

The broader advance suggested the rally was not confined to a narrow group of stocks. A market breadth story like that tends to matter because it can signal more durable conviction than a move driven by a single sector or a handful of megacap names. For now, though, the key question is whether the market is reading real economic resilience or simply becoming numb to geopolitical shocks. The answer may depend on whether oil remains contained. Wall Street has been willing to set records even as gasoline stays expensive and warnings grow about the toll of prolonged high oil prices, but that confidence could fade quickly if energy markets remain unsettled.