Markets Rally as President Trump Extends Iran Ceasefire, Big Tech Leads Surge

Let's get to the big story breakdown.

Wall Street is looking at a higher open on this Wednesday.

Massive geopolitical whiplash Trump announced an indefinite extension of the ceasefire with Iran.

Now diplomatic talks appear to have completely fallen apart and the US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz remains in place now despite this chaos, the rally in big tech is relentless with semiconductor ETFs notching 15 straight days of gains.

Well joining me on this Wednesday morning here at the New York Stock Exchange is Matt Cheslock, an equity trader at Virtu Financial.

Matt, good morning.

Thank you so much for joining me.

We are looking at green across the board for equities, oil, gold.

So what's going on and what do you make of the gains we're seeing this morning?

I love the term you use, whiplash, because that's what investors are kind of feeling, you know, while the sentiment has been wildly positive over the last 15 days and the market has reached all-time highs in the S&P and the Nasdaq and the Dow is touching on it, you know, I think people are still Really unsure what's going on in Iran.

I mean the headlines came out yesterday, you know, that the peace talks fail, the markets sold off, and it wasn't coincidental.

You know, I think people were concerned about what could happen last night if anything were to really further deteriorate.

Today we got the extension of the ceasefire.

That's a relief rally and that's what we're seeing today.

So we're broader across the board and that's not really a surprise, you know, based on that headline.

Yes, and that, although we are seeing these lofty lofty levels in the Dow, the Nasdaq, S&P 500, even the Russell, we have to keep in mind that there's dispersion happening below the surface.

So what do you make of what's happening underneath the hood?

Yeah, you know, the leaders are still leading, you know, I mean some of the big tech names as you mentioned, they're still 15 day highs here, you know, we keep going, so those trades have worked and until they don't work and people panic and sell off and you see these, you know, these V type rallies that we've gotten these huge Moves back in early March and now we're exploding to the upside, so people were caught off balance.

The shorts were definitely squeezed, so these trades keep working and I would imagine most people will probably continue to trade it that way.

You know they missed out on the beginning of the year and now they're trying to catch up a little bit based on some of the losses they may have taken early March.

Yeah, and that you're here on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange and you're watching these headlines come in and markets move between 9:30 and 4 p.m.

Eastern time.

So what sectors are you currently bullish on and what do you make of some of the laggards.

You know it's hard to be really super bullish on things that are at all-time highs, right?

I mean you can still like them, but to be super bullish on them is a little bit harder, you know, as a market maker, you know, you're always looking for the contrarian type play, so you're looking to find some kind of value on something that may have been beaten down, and you know we had some examples of that earlier.

Now you're Kind of just you're going to have to be very choosy on what you're entering in for the first time if you have a current position in something and you're letting it ride, good for you, but it might be time to to to pair some of those gains, you know, surprising headline from Trump yesterday said that you know he was surprised the market didn't go down 20% you know and in.

You know, from someone who was very market reactive in some of his comments, that was a surprise.

So you know these headlines are going to drive us to some volatility and you know down here we love a little bit of volatility.

And speaking of volatility, we've been hearing from the big banks in terms of their earnings reports and we know that volatility did very well in terms of their trading desk performances, but it is earnings season and for the most part we're getting stronger than expected earnings.

Results.

So what are you anticipating as we head into the rest of the session and given the fact that when we take a look back at what we're seeing in terms of the market recovery here in terms of sector, what are you focusing on right now and why?

Any forward guidance that we're going to get, you know, it's surprising one of the airlines today came out and said that they're going to cut their forward guidance, but they beat 1st quarter and they're being rewarded today from the stock being up even though they have a pretty wide expectation level for the current year.

So it's surprising to see what investors are actually focusing on when they're re-entering stocks, but certainly the banks led us off to a tremendous start as they generally seem to do.

But you know technology will still be the leader, so as they start to come out later in the week and later next week, you know, they're going to be the driver if we can take this market to new highs.

And finally, before I let you go, we heard from Fed yesterday, the former Fed governor and nominee for the central bank, and of course when we take a look.

Energy prices across the globe, they do remain elevated, and that will affect inflation not just here in the US but across the world as well.

So what do you make of what we can expect as we head into the rest of 2026 as well as next year?

Well, I mean we've got to get through the end of the month here, you know, the Fed meeting that's going to occur and what's going to transpire after that.

Is, uh, you know, Kevin going to get elected or nominated, excuse me, not elected, is he going to get nominated uh without too much difficulty and you know, um, we hope he's independent, you know, the Fed chairman should always be independent, um, you know, but certainly there are things that they look at, you know, inflation being one, we have really never been able to get a handle on 2% inflation, um, and that was his contention yesterday going back to 2021, 2022, so.

You know, it's not novel concepts what he's talking about, uh, but to bring it to light, um, you know, could be somewhat refreshing that, you know, there, there are changes that maybe need to be made, and he's the guy maybe to do it.

Well, great having you on the show this morning, Matt.

I appreciate your time as well as all your viewer insights and perspective.

Absolutely.

Thank you.