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Update: Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary Lift US Equity Indexes in Midday Trading

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(Updates with index/price moves and company/geopolitical news from the first paragraph.)

US equity indexes rose amid strong gains in communications services, while a slide in government bond yields accompanied a drop in crude oil futures.

The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.9% to 25,851.3, with the S&P 500 up 1.2% to 7,581.1 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher by 1.1% to 53,038.6.

In a social media post over the weekend, Trump said he canceled a planned attack against Iran after being asked by Tehran and other Middle Eastern countries to hold off because the "perimeters of a deal has been agreed to." The proposed deal would include the "immediate, complete, and total opening" of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump wrote.

However, Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmail Baghaei rejected Trump's claim, saying no negotiations with the US were underway and no meetings were scheduled, Reuters reported. Iran has no plans to host foreign delegations or send negotiators abroad in the coming days, the news report cited Baghaei as saying.

Nevertheless, the front-month US West Texas Intermediate crude oil slumped 5.9% to $79.72 a barrel, and global benchmark North Sea Brent dropped 4.6% to $83.88 a barrel.

Most US Treasury yields declined, with the 10-year trading down 5.9 basis points to 4.69%, retreating from the 52-week high touched late last week. The two-year yield dropped 3.5 basis points to 4.26%.

Alibaba (BABA) said it launched Qwen3.8-Max, its latest large language model, and plans to release the model's open weights next week alongside Qwen3.8-27B.

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