Wall Street ends higher, S&P 500, Nasdaq notch biggest monthly gains in years

Wall Street ends higher, S&P 500, Nasdaq notch biggest monthly gains in years

By Stephen Culp and Niket Nishant

Thu April 30, 2026  

I noted yesterday that there may be more of a rally today as four of the behemoth Mag7 companies turned in their Q1 after the bell. Well, we had no idea. It was an enormous rally that sent all three indexes way up with tech hitting its biggest monthly gains in six years and industrials scoring their biggest monthly advance in 1-1/2 years. Despite the poor war news, investors are ignoring that dark cloud and focusing fully on the Q1 reporting looking for desperate signs that the enormous AI spending is positioned to pay off.  

Not only did that prove to be true, but some companies are even beginning to show some AI profit for the first time. This provided a huge stoke of optimism and, beyond the Mag7, there were also a host of many different companies and many different kinds of companies that all showed healthy earnings. A raft of good economic news included the economy growing by 2% in Q1 and jobless claims dipping to their lowest since 1969. But the huge spike in oil has kept inflation above 3%, well above the Fed’s 2% target. With no end in sight to the war, it’s anyone’s guess as to when we’ll see another rate cut and the Fed could even be forced to implement another hike to compensate for the oil. At 16.96 billion shares traded today, volume is approaching the 4-week average of 17.73 billion. 

DJ: 48,861.81  -280.12        NAS: 24,673.24  +9.44         S&P: 7,135.95  -2.82               4/29

DJ: 49,652.14  +790.33       NAS: 24,892.31  +219.07     S&P: 7,209.00  +73.05             4/30

Thu 4-30-26 4:30 pm Wall Street ends higher, S&P 500, Nasdaq notch biggest monthly gains in years | Reuters