Stock Market Live April 30, 2026: S&P 500 (SPY) Boosted by Earnings and Lower Oil

The rollercoaster ride continues.

After pulling back yesterday, markets are exploding this morning. The S&P 500 is up 0.46%, or by 32 points. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY | SPY Price Prediction) is up about 0.46%, or by $3.28. The Dow is up 0.65%, or by 320 points. The Nasdaq is up 0.65%, or by 177 points. Oil is down by $1.37 at $105.44. Gold is up by $82.40 at $4,620.87. Bitcoin is up by about $570 at $76,322.71.

Oil Slipping on Demand Destruction

Helping, oil prices are starting to slip, even with the war showing no signs of cooling.

That’s happening because of demand destruction, says the International Energy Agency.

In fact, as noted by the group, “Oil demand is expected to contract by 80 kb/d this year, as the Iran war upends our global outlook. This is 730 kb/d less than in last month’s report, and a forecast 1.5 mb/d 2Q26 decline would be the sharpest since Covid-19 slashed fuel consumption. Initially, the deepest cuts in oil use have come in the Middle East and Asia Pacific, mainly for naphtha, LPG, and jet fuel. However, demand destruction will spread as scarcity and higher prices persist.”

However, it’ll be interesting to see what happens if the US launches new strikes against Iran. According to Axios.com, “CENTCOM has prepared a plan for a ‘short and powerful’ wave of strikes on Iran — likely including infrastructure targets — in hopes of breaking the negotiating deadlock, three sources with knowledge said.”

Most earnings were solid… 

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) posted a better-than-expected first-quarter report.

EPS of $10.44 beat by $3.78. Revenue of $56.3 billion, up 33.1% year over year, beat by $760 million. Unfortunately, the stock is dropping after the company increased its capex to $125 billion to $145 billion, up from a prior range of $115 billion to $135 billion.

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) is rocketing higher after posting first-quarter revenue of $109.9 billion, beating estimates of $107.2 billion. Google Cloud revenue jumped 63% from a year earlier to $20.02 billion last quarter, as compared to analyst estimates of $18.05 billion.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) beat on earnings and revenue but slipped after reporting $31.9 billion in capex for its fiscal third quarter.  EPS of $4.27 beat by 22 cents.  Revenue of $82.89 billion, up 18.3% year over year, beat by $1.46 billion. Azure revenue grew 40% year-over-year.

Following that report, Citi analysts reiterated a buy rating on the stock with a $620 price target. Wedbush reiterated an outperform rating with a $575 price target. And, according to JPMorgan, “Azure should be appreciated as a massive business growing at a remarkable scale coupled with explicit comments of demand exceeding capacity, and modest upward drift from here is a positive signal,” as quoted by Seeking Alpha.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) earnings and revenue were also above estimates. The company reported earnings of $2.78 per share and $181.52 billion in revenue, compared to expectations for $1.64 in earnings per share and $177.3 billion in revenue.