An Agreement to End the War: 8 Key Items Shaping the Stock Market Wednesday

These are the early headlines and other items poised to influence the market at the start of the trading day. As we share this collection of market drivers, U.S. equity futures point to a positive market open later on Wednesday morning.

1. The United States and Iran are closing in on an agreement on a one-page memorandum to end the war in the Gulf, a source from mediator Pakistan familiar with the negotiations said… Reports of the possible agreement to end the war caused global oil prices to plunge, with benchmark Brent crude futures falling more than 8% to around $100 a barrel. Global share prices also leapt, and bond yields fell on optimism of an end to a war that has disrupted energy supplies. (Reuters)

Like many others, we are hopeful for peace talks progress that will bring an end to the U.S.-Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Our understanding based on reports in the last 24 hours is such a one-page memorandum would lead to more detailed talks and a final agreement being reached. As the market is celebrating on Wednesday morning, it means we’re not out of the woods just yet. We continue to believe details will matter, and that the topic of enriched uranium will be a critical one.

Coming into Wednesday, Tuesday's positive move in the market put the RSI levels for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite at 70.79 and 73.80, respectively. The continued upswing on Wednesday morning, indicated by U.S. equity futures, will extend that overbought condition, keeping us on a prudent path with the Pro Portfolio. We like to enjoy the rewards as much as anyone, but we need to be mindful of potential risk.

2. Anthropic has committed to spend $200 billion with Google Cloud over five years as part of a recent agreement, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing a person with knowledge of ‌the matter. The commitment suggests the AI startup accounts for more than 40% of the revenue backlog Google disclosed to investors last week, according to the report. The backlog reflects contractual commitments from cloud customers… Contracts involving Anthropic and OpenAI now account for more than half of the $2 trillion in backlogs at major cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud ‌Platform, ⁠the U.S. digital news outlet reported. (Reuters)

3. AMD’s upbeat outlook signals that it’s winning orders from the biggest spenders on artificial intelligence computing. Though Nvidia remains the dominant provider of AI processors, data center customers are increasingly seeking alternatives — a trend that has helped AMD… The data center CPU market will grow at “greater than 35% annually, reaching over $120 billion by 2030,” AMD said. As recently as November, at the company’s analyst day, it was forecasting an 18% rate of increase. (Bloomberg)

4. The sale of the company’s servers fitted with Nvidia Corp. chips have surged as customers seek to expand their ability to train and run AI tasks. As new versions of Nvidia’s processors roll out, Super Micro and its competitors such as Dell Technologies Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. are spending to win contracts and to speed new products to clients. (Bloomberg) Infineon Technologies AG forecast revenue that beat analysts’ expectations in the current quarter as the German chipmaker benefits from a spending boom on artificial intelligence infrastructure. (Bloomberg)

Those back-to-back comments are fodder for our AI and data center infrastructure positions in the Pro Portfolio, including Broadcom (AVGO) and Marvell (MRVL) . Coming off the quarterly earnings from hyperscalers, AMD (AMD) and others, we will revisit our AVGO and MRVL price targets near-term.

We also see the collected comments bringing another layer of support for our shares of Eaton (ETN) as well as Arista Networks (ANET) . Arista delivered a beat-and-raise Q2 2026 on Tuesday night. More detailed comments on those results are coming later on Wednesday morning, but we will share that JPMorgan is lifting its ANET target to $200 from $190, while TD Cowen took its target to $200 from $170. Those firms and others are looking through current supply chain issues that are hindering Arista from delivering on its building backlog of demand. If that sounds like something we heard from Microsoft (MSFT) , Google (GOOGL) and others last year, we’d agree, but also point out the cloud revenue acceleration they all posted in Q1 2026 as capacity came on stream.

5. Apple Inc. will let users choose from a range of outside artificial intelligence services to power features across its software, building on a strategy to turn its devices into a comprehensive AI platform. Users will be able to select from multiple third-party AI models for tasks like generating and editing text and images, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The change is slated for iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 this fall… (Bloomberg)

While Apple (AAPL) was disparaged over issues with its homegrown Apple Intelligence, it looks like the company will reap the benefits of AI investments made by others. Whether this decision factors into its AI-enabled Siri relationship with Google is TBD, but once again, it appears Apple is wading into a market just as the tipping point arrives. This gives us another reason (like we need one) to tune into Apple’s upcoming WWDC keynote.

And for what it’s worth, this is the same option Apple offers for browsers in iOS, where one can use Google Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Arc and Onion Browser, even though the default is Apple’s Safari.

6. Walt Disney reported a decline in visitor numbers at its U.S. theme parks in the first quarter as new chief executive Josh D’Amaro contends with a squeeze on consumer spending exacerbated by the Iran war. Disney said on Wednesday that attendance at its US parks fell 1 per cent in the three months to the end of March, compared with a year ago, dragged down by a drop in international visitors as higher travel costs bite... In a letter to investors, D’Amaro said demand at Disney’s U.S. parks and resorts remains “healthy” but added that “we are mindful of the macroeconomic uncertainty consumers are facing today”. (FT)

While Disney (DIS) topped consensus expectations with its latest quarterly report out earlier on Wednesday morning, its comment about the consumer sticks with us as we move into retail and consumer-facing earnings reports. Progress on a peaceful solution between the U.S. and Iran is dropping oil prices this morning, but it will take some time for that flow through to gas prices, which hit their highest level in four years. That, of course, assumes a peaceful settlement is reached.

Recent inflation data, including Tuesday's ISM’s April Service PMI Price subindex hitting a four-year high, continues to be a thorn in the side of consumer spending. Per ISM, Services providers cited higher fuel, gasoline, diesel, copper, and freight prices due to the war. In our view, this is a nice setup for Costco’s (COST) April retail sales report that we’ll get after Wednesday's market close.

7. Economic data today per TipRanks: MBA Mortgage Applications Index (Weekly), ADP Employment Change Report (April), EIA Crude Oil Inventories (Weekly)

8. Companies reporting today per TipRanks: AM - Bloomin’ Brands (BLMN) , Clear Secure (YOU) , CVS Health (CVS) , Dine Brands (DIN) , Edgewell Personal Care (EPC) , Elanco Animal Health (ELAN) , Insulet (PODD) , Kraft Heinz (KHC) , Marriott (MAR) , New York Times (NYT) , Restaurant Brands (QSR) , Uber (UBER) , Utz Brands (UTZ) , Walt Disney (DIS) . PM - American States Water (AWR) , Axon (AXON) , CF Industries (CF) , DoorDash (DASH) , Fastly (FSLY) , Kratos Defense & Security (KTOS) , Kulicke & Soffa (KLIC) , LegalZoom (LZ) , Realty Income (O) , Snap (SNAP) , Sunrun (RUN) , Whirlpool (WHR) .

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AAPL, ANET, AXON, AVGO, COST, ETN,GOOGL, META, MRVL, and MSFT shares.