Energy and defense stocks rose after the U.S. ousted Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, and President Trump pledged American drillers would revive the country's crude production.
The moves helped boost indexes, as did surges in growth stocks such as Tesla, Amazon and Palantir. The Dow industrials led gains among major benchmarks, rising about 800 points and hitting a new intraday high above 49000.
Oilfield-services stocks like Baker Hughes leapt, alongside refiners such as Valero. Chevron, the last remaining U.S. oil major in Venezuela, gained, as did rivals ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil, which pulled out of Venezuela nearly 20 years ago. The prospect of greater geopolitical tensions lifted global defense stocks.
Oil prices were volatile. Brent crude futures-the benchmark for international prices-initially fell, before rebounding to trade higher. Energy traders say significant obstacles remain before Venezuelan oil flows more freely into global markets.
Gold futures, typically seen as a haven in riskier times, rose more than 2%. Silver jumped more than 7% and copper gained too.
The chief executives of Nvidia and AMD are due to speak on Monday at the CES flagship technology event in Las Vegas. Both stocks rose early, but later pared gains and turned lower.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 05, 2026 14:11 ET (19:11 GMT)
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