Wall Street closes slightly down on renewed US-Iran tension

Published: 2026-04-20 19:19:17 ET AAPL

Published on 04/20/2026 at 07:19 pm EDT

STORY: U.S. stocks closed slightly lower on Monday, with the Dow flat, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each dipping about a quarter of a percent.

All three indexes are coming off a third-straight week of gains, but renewed U.S.-Iran tensions put the durability of a two-week ceasefire in question.

Adam Coons is chief investment officer at Winthrop Capital Management.

"Today, we've got markets in that digestion period of, what's going on in the Middle East. Last week, we ended the week with a strong rally because there were just talks, stronger talks about a deal being made between the U.S. and Iran. And just kind of over the weekend saw some deterioration of kind of evidence on what that would look like and if it was really going to even happen. So you're seeing stocks sell off a little bit today and just overall kind of the pessimism is creeping back into markets today."

U.S. crude jumped more than 6.5% to settle at nearly $90 a barrel.

Among the session's stock moves, communication services was the worst-performing sector.

:: Apple

Shares of Apple moved lower in extended trading after the iPhone maker named company insider John Ternus as its next CEO. Tim Cook, who has led Apple since 2011, will become the company's executive chairman.

Shares of Meta shed two-and-a-half percent to snap a nine-session winning streak, its longest since October.

:: Netflix

And shares of Netflix also fell two-and-a-half percent. The stock has fallen about 12% since the streaming service last week announced its quarterly results and the departure of co-founder Reed Hastings.