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NEW YORK — Oil prices sank again Tuesday and dropped below $80 per barrel for the first time since early March, while U.S. stocks drifted near their all-time highs in mixed trading.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index slipped 0.6% and pulled 1.3% below the record it set earlier this month. The market was nearly evenly split between stocks rising and falling, and the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.6% to set a record for the second straight day. But drops for some influential tech stocks pulled the Nasdaq composite down 1.2%.
Stocks that had benefited from the boom in artificial intelligence technology weighed on the market, particularly after vicious swings over the last couple weeks.
They’ve been leading the market up and down amid worries that their stock prices shot too high in the mania around AI. That’s taken a toll because chip companies, makers of computer memory and other AI winners have grown so massive that they’ve become some of Wall Street’s most influential stocks.
Drops of 2.4% for Nvidia, 4.4% for Broadcom and 6.2% for Micron Technology were the heaviest weights pulling the S&P 500 lower.
Dave & Buster’s Entertainment sank 6.2% after reporting a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, while Robinhood Markets fell 1.4% after the investing platform said it’s laying off about 10% of its full-time employees.
On the winning side of Wall Street was SpaceX, which rose 4.8% for its third straight gain since its debut on the U.S. stock market. It said it’s moving forward with a purchase of Cursor, a popular AI coding assistant, valuing it at $60 billion.
Yum Brands climbed 1.9% after it said it’s selling the Pizza Hut chain for $2.7 billion. Most of the restaurants will go to LongRange Capital, a private equity firm. Those in mainland China will go to Yum China Holdings.
All told, the S&P 500 slipped 42.94 points to 7,511.35. The Dow rose 328.64 points to 51,999.67, and the Nasdaq composite fell 307.60 points to 26,376.34.
The strongest action was in the oil market, where optimism continued that a tentative U.S.-Iran deal on the war will reopen the Strait of Hormuz at the end of the week and get the global flow of oil going again. The price for a barrel of Brent crude fell 5.1% to settle at $78.96.
Significant hurdles remain in the negotiations, including what to do with Iran’s nuclear program. But the hope on Wall Street is that this agreement will mean a long-term fix to a conflict that has worsened inflation around the world. The price of Brent crude has come down sharply from its $100-plus level of a few weeks ago, though it could still take months for the energy industry to get back to full speed.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe after a mixed performance in Asia.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 briefly topped 70,000 for the first time before ending with a modest gain of 0.1% after the Bank of Japan raised its benchmark interest rate to 1%. That’s its highest level in three decades, and it came after a similar move by the European Central Bank last week.
The Federal Reserve began its own meeting about what to do with interest rates Tuesday, with an announcement on the decision scheduled for Wednesday.
It’s the first meeting under the Fed’s new chair, Kevin Warsh, who was nominated by President Trump. Trump has been pushing for lower interest rates, which would give the economy a boost but also threaten to worsen inflation. The widespread expectation, though, is that the Fed will leave its main interest rate alone again.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.43% from 4.47% late Monday and from 4.56% earlier this month.
High yields in bond markets worldwide caused by expensive oil prices have threatened to slow economies and undercut prices for all kinds of investments, including stocks and cryptocurrencies.
High yields have already sent mortgage rates higher, and a report Tuesday said construction crews broke ground on far fewer new U.S. homes in May than economists expected.
Choe writes for the Associated Press. AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
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