Oil rises, U.S. stock futures inch higher as Wall Street looks to extend its winning streak

MW Oil rises, U.S. stock futures inch higher as Wall Street looks to extend its winning streak

By Mike Murphy

The S&P 500 has gained more than 16% over the past two months, furled largely by red-hot tech stocks.

U.S. stock-index futures rose slightly on Sunday, as Wall Street looks to stretch the market's record-setting rally into June.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM00) were up about 75 points, or 0.1%, on Sunday night. S&P 500 futures (ES00) rose 0.3% and Nasdaq-100 futures (NQ00) were up about 0.5%. Bitcoin (BTCUSD) was recently trading around $74,000, down about 5% over the past week.

Oil prices rose on Sunday, after tumbling in May on renewed hopes that the Iran war will soon end. West Texas Intermediate crude (CL.1), the U.S. benchmark, advanced nearly 3% late Sunday, after dropping 17% over the past month, closing Friday at $87.36 a barrel and capping its worst month since early 2020, according to FactSet data. Brent crude (BRN00) rose more than 2% on Sunday after settling at $92.50 on Friday and falling 20% on the month.

Read more: Oil prices tumble nearly 20% in May - the biggest monthly drop since 2020. Here's what's next.

"Beneath the market's calm exterior sits an uncomfortable contradiction," Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, wrote in a note Sunday night. "The oil market remains focused on physical risk, while the stock market focuses on future earnings. They are watching the same movie through entirely different lenses."

"The result is a growing divergence in how markets are processing risk," Innes added. "Oil remains suspended between fear and relief, constantly repricing every headline that threatens physical supply. Equities remain caught between momentum and complacency, increasingly willing to assume that diplomacy will eventually solve problems that energy traders know can linger long after the shooting stops. One market is trading today's risks while the other is trading tomorrow's possibilities."

Meanwhile, negotiations to end the Iran war apparently remain stalled. The New York Times reported over the weekend that President Donald Trump has toughened the terms of a potential agreement. On Saturday, President Donald Trump told his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, in an interview on Fox News that he's in no hurry to make a deal with Iran. "Slowly but surely we're getting, I think, what we want, and if we don't get what we want we're going to end it a different way," he said, hinting at further military strikes. On Saturday, the U.S. Navy struck a merchant ship trying to avoid the blockade of Iranian ports, the Associated Press reported.

On Friday, all three major U.S. indexes closed at record highs for the third day in a row, as the Iran stalemate continued to be overshadowed by a huge rally by tech stocks. The Dow DJIA rose 2.8% in May, while the S&P 500 SPX gained 5.2%, and ended Friday with its ninth straight winning week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq COMP jumped 8.4% over the month.

See more: Wall Street's red-hot momentum trade is still winning, as strategy delivers best 2-month gain on record

Also: These S&P 500 stocks soared the most during the AI-driven May rally

With earnings season winding down - this week will see Broadcom $(AVGO)$, CrowdStrike (CRWD) and Macy's (M) reporting, among others - investors will be looking forward to employment data this week, with April job-openings data due out Tuesday, ADP employment data scheduled for Wednesday and the May employment report coming Friday.

-Mike Murphy

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May 31, 2026 22:49 ET (02:49 GMT)

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