Stocks closed sharply higher yesterday. The Nasdaq was the biggest winner with 3.83% (the biggest one-day advance since May of last year). The small-cap Russell 2000 was next with 3.41%, followed by the S&P 500 with 2.91%. The mid-cap S&P 400 gained 2.82%, and the Dow added 2.49%.

The Nasdaq and Russell, which were both in correction territory, have exited that category and are now just in pullback territory with the others (-5% to -9.99%). BTW, the small-caps and mid-caps are back in the plus column YTD with gains of 0.58% and 2.15% respectively.

The catalyst for yesterday's rally, aside from being oversold, was hope that the conflict with Iran will soon come to an end.

First, there were reports that President Trump told aides he was willing to end the war with Iran, even if the Strait of Hormuz remained closed.

We then heard that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was open to ending the war under certain conditions, including international guarantees against future aggression.

Meantime, both sides continue to strike at the other. But negotiations are ongoing. And the deadline of Monday, 4/6 is fast approaching.

Either way, the market saw these developments thru a glass-half-full lens yesterday.

BTW, crude oil fell -1.2% yesterday.

Tech has taken the brunt of the recent selling. But a good portion of that was profit-taking after heady gains. But they were the big winners yesterday. NVIDIA gained 5.59%, Micron was up 4.98%, and Sandisk was up 10.98%, to name a few.

We also heard that NVIDIA made a $2 billion investment in Marvell for their high-speed interconnect technology. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said, "Marvell is a marvelous investment." And Marvell CEO Matt Murphy said, "this just helps turbo-charge our growth and our opportunity, and gives us an infusion of capital that actually allows us to go do that." Marvell was up 12.80% yesterday.

Also on the tech front, it was reported that OpenAI closed a record-breaking funding round of $122 billion yesterday. Reports put the company's valuation now at $852B. OpenAI plans to go public later this year.

In other news, yesterday's Case-Shiller Home Price Index was off -0.1% m/m (unadjusted), the same as last month, and came in at 1.2% y/y vs. last month's 1.4% pace.

The Chicago PMI slipped to 52.8 vs. last month's 57.7 and views for 54.0.

Consumer Confidence improved to 91.8 vs. last month's 91.0 and estimates for 88.5.

And the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey report (or JOLTS for short) showed job openings for February at 6.882 million vs. January's upwardly revised 7.240M (from 6.946M).

Today we'll get MBA Mortgage Applications, Retail Sales, the PMI Manufacturing Index, the ISM Manufacturing Index, Business Inventories, and the ADP Employment report.

But the jobs report everybody is really waiting for is Friday's Employment Situation report.

Yes, the markets are closed on Friday for Good Friday. But the report is still coming out. That means, the market won't be able to react to it until Monday, 4/6.

(BTW, 4/6, as you know, also happens to be the deadline for Iran to accept a peace plan. So it should be a busy day on Monday.)

But there's still 2 more trading days left in the week. And as we've seen yesterday, every day counts.

Hopefully, we'll get a little bit more good news, and the market can build on the long-overdue rally.

See you tomorrow,