US stocks rise despite Iran tensions as Wall Street's fear gauge stays low

US stocks rose on Thursday, July 9 (18 Tir), even as US-Iran hostilities escalated. The S&P 500 closed up 0.8%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.3%, the same day CENTCOM reported striking about 90 military targets in Iran. According to Yahoo Finance and TheStreet, US investors focused more on artificial-intelligence prospects than on the Middle East flare-up. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), Wall Street's fear gauge, traded around 16.8 on Friday, July 10 (19 Tir), near the low end of its 52-week range of 13.4 to 35.3.