Oil drops below $80 per barrel, while tech stocks weigh on a mixed Wall
Street
[June 17, 2026] By
STAN CHOE
NEW YORK (AP) — 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 S&P 500 slipped 0.6% and pulled 1.3% below its record set earlier
this month. The market was nearly evenly split between stocks rising and
falling, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 328 points, or 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 in particular following 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 that 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 Jones
Industrial Average rose 328.64 to 51,999.67, and the Nasdaq composite
fell 307.60 to 26,376.34.
The strongest action was in the oil market, where optimism continued
that a tentative U.S.-Iran deal on their 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.
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Trader Edward Curran works on the floor of the New York Stock
Exchange, Tuesday, June 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
 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 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 following 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 followed a similar move by the European Central Bank
last week.
The Federal Reserve began its own meeting on 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 Donald 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 on
Tuesday said construction crews broke ground on far fewer new U.S.
homes in May than economists expected.
___
AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this
report.
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