Partial Ceasefire Causes Oil Stocks to Drop, Equities to Rally

Markets are treating the ceasefire as enough of a pause to take some war premium back out of the tape.

Reuters reported that Wall Street jumped on the news of a two-week US-Iran ceasefire, while crude dropped below $100 as traders priced in the possibility of smoother flows through Hormuz again. However, it’s worth noting that energy names lagged badly even as the broader market rallied.

This fits what charts are currently showing.

XLE (Oil Stocks ETF)

On XLE, the move is basically the market taking a chunk of that oil-risk premium back out in one shot.

You have the gap lower, price dropping back into that support area, and the bigger question now is whether that gap starts acting like unfinished business overhead. If the ceasefire keeps holding, energy can stay heavy. If the story starts to wobble, that gap can become a magnet fast.

The anchored vWAP at $59.97 should also serve as temporary resistance should it be reached.

USTEC (Nasdaq)

On USTEC, this looks more like relief than some grand clean breakout. Price ran the highs, swept liquidity, and then backed off. That does not mean the rally is dead, it just means the market has indeed bought on the headlines. Now it has to prove it can actually hold above the level instead of just poking through it.

The potential support level below at $24,000 should serve as a proving ground.

XLF (Financials ETF)

XLF is a bit more mixed, which is what makes it useful. It has reclaimed the low at $48.50 – $49.00, but price is still pushing into resistance rather than cleanly clearing it. So this one is less about the ceasefire itself and more about whether the market wants to lean back into the rates and earnings story.

That part matters because Q1 earnings season is basically around the corner now:

JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and BlackRock are all scheduled to report on Tuesday, 14 April 2026, so next week is where the market starts getting a real read on how management teams are framing the quarter rather than just reacting to macro headlines.

If companies sound cautious, or if guidance starts coming in soft, the rally will need something stronger than a ceasefire headline to keep pushing higher.

Bottom Line: Until earnings week begins, the real test is whether these ceasefire headlines actually hold. By now, the war-news pattern has been fairly clear: first comes the good news, then comes the negative surprise. Make no mistake that despite the rally, uncertainty is still very much in the air.