U.S. stocks were modestly higher on Friday afternoon as investors held out hope for a peace deal between Iran and the United States and as SpaceX shares surged in their debut, making it Wall Street's biggest public listing in history.

The United States and Iran signalled that an agreement to end their war was close, with a senior U.S. administration official saying a draft proposal was in place that was liked by both sides. U.S. President Donald Trump has said several times since mid-March that a deal with Iran to end the war was close.

Market participants were glued to shares of Elon Musk's SpaceX, which began trading on the Nasdaq on Friday. Its shares were last up 27.9% at $172.55, well above the IPO price of $135 apiece, valuing the company at more than $2 trillion.

Shares of other space stocks, which have soared in the lead-up to the debut, eased on Friday. Rocket Lab fell 8%, Intuitive Machines dropped 12.5% and Planet Labs shed 9%, while funds holding shares of SpaceX such as Fundrise Innovation Fund rose 1.3%.

Mike Dickson, head of research and quantitative strategies at Horizon Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina, said he was surprised by the lack of volatility in SpaceX so far, given the hype around the IPO.

"We might see a little drift up all day as you don't have the sellers and you might entice a few more buyers in," he said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 351.73 points, or 0.69%, to 51,200.65, the S&P 500 gained 23.84 points, or 0.32%, to 7,418.14 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 28.41 points, or 0.11%, to 25,837.58.

Investors were also looking ahead to next week's Federal Reserve policy meeting, which will be the first under the leadership of Kevin Warsh.

U.S. equity funds saw their first weekly outflow in three weeks, and earlier this week the technology index confirmed a correction. Analysts believe some of the weakness in U.S. stocks and bitcoin's 16% fall last week could be due to traders trimming holdings ahead of SpaceX's debut.

SpaceX is now ranked among the biggest publicly listed U.S. companies.

Shares of Tesla, another Musk company that trades at a premium to its earnings, were up just 0.7%.

Only about 3% to 4% of SpaceX's shares are expected to be available for trading, with a large allocation to retail investors.

IPOs of AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic are also highly anticipated later in the year.

SpaceX, which also includes Starlink and xAI, has already defied some Wall Street conventions. Index providers such as Nasdaq and FTSE Russell have tweaked their entry requirements for its inclusion, while the company also set its stock price at $135, even before the roadshow began, reflecting Musk's sway over the IPO.

Some analysts have voiced caution, however, over the fundamentals of the company, which posted more than $4 billion in annual losses last year.

Among the day's decliners, Adobe slid 7.8% after the exit of CFO Dan Durn.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.18-to-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange. There were 338 new highs and 60 new lows on the NYSE.

On the Nasdaq, 2,730 stocks rose and 1,999 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.36-to-1 ratio.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York and Johann M Cherian in in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Twesha Dikshit and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Matthew Lewis)

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.

This story was originally published June 12, 2026 at 11:58 AM.

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