05:45 PM EDT, 04/07/2026 (MT Newswires) -- US equity indexes pared losses on Tuesday as investors weighed a potential 11th-hour proposal to facilitate a ceasefire deal, likely taking President Donald Trump's warning of an 8 p.m. E.T. annihilation of Iran's infrastructure off the table.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.1% to 22,017.85, and the S&P 500 edged up less than 0.1% to 6,616.85. Both gauges traded lower intraday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2% to 46,584.46, but was off session lows. Most sectors fell, with consumer discretionary and consumer staples leading the decliners.

"To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks," Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a post on X on Tuesday. "Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture."

Progress has been made in the past 24 hours in the negotiations between the US and Iran, though reaching a ceasefire deal by President Trump's deadline still looks like a long shot, Axios reported Tuesday, citing a US official, an Israeli official, and two other sources with knowledge of the talks.

"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will," Trump said in a Truth Social post, warning Iran about his Tuesday deadline. "Maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight."

West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures dropped 1.7% to $110.79, while Brent crude futures slumped 3.9% to $105.50, reflecting market expectations that Trump may give a chance to the Pakistani peace plan.

US Treasury yields fell, with the 10-year down 3.4 basis points to 4.3% and the two-year rate lower by 5.4 basis points to 3.8%, as declining crude oil prices alleviated bond traders' inflation concerns.

In precious metals, gold futures rose 1.1% to $4,733.6 and silver futures edged up 0.4% to $73.11.

In economic news, new orders for US durable goods fell by 1.4% in February, following a smaller 0.5% decrease, below expectations for a 1.2% decrease in a Bloomberg-compiled survey. Excluding a 5.4% drop in transportation orders, new orders would have been up 0.8% in February after a 0.3% increase in January. Expectations were for a 0.5% gain.

Redbook US same-store sales rose by 7.6% from a year earlier in the week ended April 4 after a 6.9% year-over-year increase in the previous week.

In company news, Broadcom ( AVGO ) said in a filing that it entered into a long-term agreement with Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) Google ( GOOG ) to develop and supply custom tensor processing units for Google's ( GOOG ) future generations of TPUs. Shares of Broadcom ( AVGO ) jumped 6.2%, the top performer on the Nasdaq.

Health Insurance stocks were advancing after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, announced a larger-than-expected increase to Medicare Advantage payments for 2027. Humana (HUM) shares jumped 7.9%, while UnitedHealth ( UNH ) and CVS Health ( CVS ) shares were up 9.4% and 6.7%, respectively. The trio was among the biggest gainers on the S&P 500.