NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are climbing worldwide, and oil prices are easing Wednesday as hopes build that the war with Iran could end soon. Some of the moves are tentative, though, after financial markets have already seen similar bouts of optimism get quickly undercut several times.

The S&P 500 rose 0.6% and added to its leap from the day before, which was its best since last spring. That followed even bigger gains for stock markets across Europe and Asia, including an 8.4% surge in South Korea, which were catching up to Wall Street’s rally from Tuesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 292 points, or 0.6%, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1% higher.

Oil prices also fell back toward $100 per barrel after President Donald Trump said shortly before Wall Street began trading that Iran “has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!”

“We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”

Trump had said the night before that the U.S. military could end its offensive in two to three weeks. That added to optimism following a couple tenuous signals of hope from earlier Tuesday that Wall Street latched onto, including a news report quoting Iran’s president as saying that it has “the necessary will to end the war” as long as certain requirements are met, including “guarantees to prevent a recurrence of aggression.”

The worry on Wall Street has been that the war may last a long time and keep oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf out of global markets, which could create a brutal blast of inflation.

But hope has been quick to swing to doubt on Wall Street since the war with Iran began, triggering manic swings back and forth for financial markets. Trump has also made statements that lifted markets, only to see the gains quickly disappear after increasing his military threats against Iran. Investors say Trump’s statements are becoming less impactful for financial markets.

And oil prices remain high, even if they’ve eased so far this week. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, was sitting at $101.16 following its declines, which is still up from roughly $70 before the war began.

U.S. gas prices rose again overnight to a national average of $4.06, according to the auto club AAA.

Iran hit an oil tanker off the coast of Qatar and Kuwait’s airport on Wednesday while airstrikes battered Tehran as the fighting continued. Iran also continues to hold a grip on the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes during peacetime.

“De-escalation hopes have given markets a lift, but we think the effects of the war would, in many cases, persist even if the war did end soon,” Thomas Mathews, head of markets, Asia Pacific at Capital Economics, said in a research note Wednesday.

“It’s worth thinking through how markets might fare if the war were to end ‘very soon,’” he wrote. “Do markets have further to recover if sentiment continues to improve? The answer is almost certainly yes.”

The White House said Trump will deliver a public address Wednesday evening on the Iran war.

On Wall Street, the majority of stocks rose, with Big Tech powering the move higher. Gains of 2.8% for Alphabet and 0.8% for Nvidia were two of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.

They helped offset a 13.1% drop for Nike, which fell even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Analysts said it gave some lackluster financial forecasts.

Hasbro fell 3.6% after the toy company found someone had gained unauthorized access to its computer network and is working to see what the full impact was.

In stock markets abroad, indexes leaped more than 1% in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Asian markets had even bigger gains.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 5.2% after a survey by Japan’s central bank showed business sentiment for major Japanese manufacturers improved despite Iran war worries.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady after a report said U.S. retailers made more money in February than economists expected. A separate report said U.S. manufacturing growth last month was slightly faster than economists expected. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.32% from 4.30% late Tuesday.

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed.

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