US stocks were mixed on Monday as a sharp rise in oil prices collided with fresh optimism about artificial intelligence, leaving the major indexes close to where they began the day. The S&P 500 traded little changed from the all-time high it had set on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped about 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite was roughly flat.
The cross-currents were unusually clear. A surge in crude, set off by Iran’s decision to suspend negotiations with the United States and threaten the Strait of Hormuz, lifted energy producers but weighed on the broader market by reviving worries about inflation and growth. Working in the other direction were technology shares, buoyed by Nvidia’s announcements at the Computex conference in Taipei.
Nvidia’s unveiling of new data-centre and laptop chips reinforced the narrative that has powered much of the market’s advance over the past year, and the company’s gains rippled through chipmakers and the firms building AI infrastructure. Microsoft rose on news that it would ship laptops using Nvidia’s new processor, while Intel fell on the prospect of stiffer competition.
The standoff left investors weighing a familiar question: whether the momentum behind a handful of large technology companies can keep carrying indexes to records even as geopolitical risk pushes energy costs higher. Market breadth has been narrow, with a small group of stocks doing much of the heavy lifting.
Treasury yields and the dollar were steady to firmer as traders recalibrated expectations for central-bank policy against the risk of higher fuel prices. Gold, which has drawn safe-haven demand through the recent bouts of Middle East tension, held near elevated levels.
With the S&P 500 perched at a record and oil swinging on each turn of the Iran talks, the market’s near-term direction looked likely to hinge less on earnings than on whether the diplomatic rupture deepens or proves temporary.