US stocks ended higher on Friday as investors held out hope for a peace deal between Iran and the United States and as SpaceX shares surged in their debut, making it Wall Street's biggest public listing in history.
The United States and Iran signalled that an agreement to end their war was close, with a senior US administration official saying a draft proposal was in place that was liked by both sides. President Donald Trump has said several times since mid-March that a deal with Iran to end the war was close.
Market participants were glued to shares of Elon Musk's SpaceX , which began trading on the Nasdaq on Friday. Its shares closed up 19.2 per cent at $US160.95 ($A228.36), well above the IPO price of $US135 ($A192) apiece. Its market capitalisation was last at $US2.1 trillion ($A3 trillion).
Shares of other space stocks, which soared in the lead-up to the debut, eased on Friday. Rocket Lab's stock fell 10.8 per cent, while Intuitive Machines was down 13.1 per cent and Planet Labs declined 8.8 per cent.
The reported progress in peace talks helped to lift sentiment, said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
"There's still hope for a peace deal. Trump called off the attacks ... Third parties are confirming a peace deal is happening."
That puts pressure on oil prices and reduces worries about higher inflation and interest rates, he said.
Investors were also looking ahead to next week's Federal Reserve policy meeting, which will be the first under the leadership of Kevin Warsh. Traders will be looking for any signs of whether a rate hike is likely as fed funds futures traders price in a 55 per cent chance of an increase by December.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 353.51 points, or 0.70 per cent, to 51,202.26, the S&P 500 gained 37.16 points, or 0.50 per cent, to 7,431.46 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 79.18 points, or 0.31 per cent, to 25,888.84.
The small-cap Russell 2000 nabbed a record closing high.
Stocks also ended higher for the week, with each of the three major indexes up around 7.0 per cent for the period. But US equity funds saw their first weekly outflow in three weeks, and earlier this week the technology index confirmed a correction. Analysts believe some of the recent weakness could be due to traders trimming holdings ahead of SpaceX's debut.
SpaceX is now ranked among the biggest publicly listed US companies.
Mike Dickson, head of research and quantitative strategies at Horizon Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina, said he was surprised by the lack of volatility in SpaceX so far, given the hype around the IPO.
IPOs of AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic are also highly anticipated later in the year. SpaceX, which also includes Starlink and xAI, has already defied some Wall Street conventions.
Some analysts have voiced caution, however, over the fundamentals of the company, which posted more than $US4 billion ($A5.7 billion) in annual losses last year.
"Sentiment could easily turn sour because SpaceX is truly overvalued at this level," Dollarhide said.
Shares of Tesla, another Musk company that trades at a premium to its earnings, ended 1.8 per cent higher. On the flip side, Adobe slid 6.8 per cent after the exit of CFO Dan Durn.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.07-to-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange. There were 372 new highs and 66 new lows on the NYSE.
On the Nasdaq, 2,678 stocks rose and 2,185 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.23-to-1 ratio. The S&P 500 posted 35 new 52-week highs and 10 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 200 new highs and 112 new lows.
Volume on US exchanges was 19.73 billion shares, compared with the 20.7 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
