Stock Market Live April 21, 2026: S&P 500 (SPY) is Back in the Green on Cease Fire Hopes Again

By Ian Cooper Published Apr 21, 8:57AM EDT

Quick Read

President Trump says talks will be relatively quick, but also warned that he was under no pressure to deal. Iran says the U.S. Navy blockade is a violation of the ceasefire announced on April 7.
While retail sales saw their biggest gain in March in about three years, much of it was because of higher gas prices and higher inflation.
Both Apple CEO Tim Cook and Nike CEO and President Elliott Hill have recently shown strong conviction in shares of Nike (NKE).

Live Updates

Bank of American reiterated a buy rating on Apple

Apr 21, 2026 at 8:56 AM EDT

Following news that CEO Tim Cook will step down on September 1, 2026, Bank of America said the Apple CEO change is coming from a position of strength.

“The timing of the leadership transition to us suggests that 1) near-term results are extremely resilient, given that Apple will likely plan such changes from a position of strong business momentum and 2) a product-oriented leader with years of deep experience in Apple’s hardware design suggests we might be entering a new era of devices,” as quoted by CNBC.

After a rough start to the week, futures are pointing to a higher open.

At the moment, S&P 500 futures are up 0.35%, or by 25 points. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY | SPY Price Prediction) is up 0.43%, or by $3.02. The Dow is up 0.57%, OR BY 281 points. The Nasdaq is up 0.41%, or by 109 points. Oil is back under $90 at $89.29. Gold is down by $27 at $4,782. Bitcoin is up about $800 at $76,654.95. Even with the Iran ceasefire ending tomorrow, which creates even more uncertainty, markets are attempting to shrug it off at this point.

Here’s what we know at the moment.

President Trump says talks will be relatively quick, but also warned that he was under no pressure to deal. Iran says the U.S. Navy blockade is a violation of the ceasefire announced on April 7. However, Trump won’t remove that blockade until there’s a deal in place.

Retail sales are also out this morning.

While retail sales saw their biggest gain in March in about three years, much of it was because of higher gas prices and higher inflation. And unfortunately, both could have a devastating impact on the economy if they don’t cool off. As reported, retail sales were up 1.7% last month. Gas stations saw a gain of 15.5%. If we remove that gain, retail sales were up about 0.6%.

Insider Buying: Nike

Over the last few months, shares of Nike (NKE) have been crushed.

Not helping, management said fourth quarter sales could decline 2% to 4% on an annual basis. That’s causing a problem because if we look back at prior management comments, the company expected to see improvements later this year. The latest guidance now says investors will just have to keep waiting to see if that happens at all.

And Wall Street has apparently lost its patience.

Still, not everyone is stepping away.

Both Apple CEO Tim Cook and Nike CEO and President Elliott Hill have recently shown strong conviction in the name. Cook purchased 25,000 shares at approximately $42.23 per share, totaling just over $1.06 million. Around the same time, Hill acquired more than 23,660 shares at roughly $42.27 per share, also totaling just over $1 million.

Market Movers: Bank of America reiterated a buy on Tesla

Analysts at Bank of America just reiterated a buy rating on Tesla ahead of earnings tomorrow. The firm believes Q1 earnings focus will be on “robotaxi deployments, as it looks to disrupt the rideshare market and capture a portion of the $1tn+ market opportunity,” as quoted by CNBC.

Analysts at KeyBanc reiterated an overweight rating on Nvidia, noting that it’s still a top idea. “We see NVDA as remaining uniquely positioned to benefit from AI/ML secular data center growth within the industry. With significant barriers to entry created by its CUDA software stack, we see limited competitive risks and expect NVDA to continue to dominate one of the fastest-growing workloads in cloud and enterprise,” as quoted by CNBC.