Most of Wall Street rises, but sinking AI stocks send it lower for the
week
[June 27, 2026] By
STAN CHOE
NEW YORK (AP) — Most of the U.S. stock market rose Friday after oil
prices eased back to where they were before the war with Iran, but drops
for stocks swept up in the mania around artificial-intelligence
technology kept the market in check.
The S&P 500 finished nearly flat and slipped less than 0.1% to close out
just its second losing week in the last 13. The Dow Jones Industrial
Average dipped 44 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.
Stocks got a boost as the price of Brent crude oil, the international
standard, dropped 3.8% to $72.60. That’s lower than it was the day
before the United States and Israel attacked Iran, which eventually led
to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the curtailment of oil
shipments worldwide.
The easier oil prices helped stocks of companies with big fuel bills,
and American Airlines Group climbed 1.7%.
Health care stocks, meanwhile, were some of the strongest forces pushing
upward on the market after a committee of the European Medicines Agency
recommended several medicines for approval and the extension for another
dozen of their therapeutic indications. That included one for Eli Lilly,
whose stock jumped 7.1%.
Besides Lilly, nearly two out of every three stocks within the S&P 500
rose. But more drops for AI stocks helped to overshadow them.
After soaring to tremendous heights and leading the market for years, AI
stocks have been under pressure recently because of worries their
profits can’t possibly keep pace with the tremendous rallies for their
stock prices. And those drops have an outsized effect because AI stocks
have become Wall Street’s largest and most influential, giving movements
for their stock prices more weight on indexes than others.
Micron Technology’s drop of 6.7% was the heaviest weight on the market,
for example. The maker of memory for computers has been a big winner
this year, with its stock roughly quadrupling, because the AI boom has
created a surge of demand for its products.
But investors saw the downside of that surge Thursday, when Apple said
it had to raise prices on laptops and other products by significant
percentages to make up for the increases in memory prices. The worry is
that such higher prices could ultimately lead to lower demand.
Highlighting the roller-coaster ride that AI stocks have been on, SpaceX
briefly dropped 2.9% in the morning and fell below $149. It then erased
the loss to swing to a gain of 3.5% before finishing with a modest rise
of 0.2%.
After initially selling its stock at $135 apiece in its ballyhooed
initial public offering earlier this month, SpaceX’s price briefly
soared above $225 within its first few days of trading. Besides rockets,
Elon Musk’s company also owns the xAI artificial-intelligence business.
[to top of second column] |
Trader Edward Curran works on the floor of the New York Stock
Exchange, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
 The day’s largest loss in the S&P
500 was a 23.7% drop for ON Semiconductor, which said it agreed to
buy Synaptics in an all-stock deal valued at roughly $7 billion.
All told, the S&P 500 slipped 3.47 points to 7,354.02. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average dipped 44.51 to 51,876.11, and the Nasdaq
composite fell 60.99 to 25,297.62.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased with oil prices. The yield
on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.37% from 4.40% late Thursday.
It fell after a report showed expectations for inflation in the
coming year inched down among U.S. consumers to 4.6% from 4.8% in
May. That’s still high, but moves downward mean less chance of a
vicious cycle where expectations for higher inflation drive changes
in behavior that create higher inflation.
High yields in bond markets worldwide caused by worries about
inflation have been threatening to slow economies, and they have
already sent rates higher for mortgages and other kinds of loans.
High yields also hurt prices for investments, particularly those
seen as the most expensive. That raises the pressure on AI winners.
Asian stock markets began Friday with sharp drops because of losses
for AI winners.
In Japan, a 12.5% plunge for Softbank Group Corp. helped pull the
Nikkei 225 index down by 4.2%. The company is a major investor in
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and a report in The New York Times
suggested OpenAI is considering delaying an initial public offering
of its stock to next year from the second half of this year.
Such an IPO would give OpenAI the chance to raise more cash to spend
on data centers, as well as the opportunity for early investors like
Softbank to cash out some of their holdings. But the recent stumbles
for SpaceX’s stock and for AI stocks broadly may be a signal of less
appetite for big AI stocks among investors.
In South Korea, SK Hynix fell 8.4%, and Samsung Electronics sank
5.3%. That helped pull the Kospi 5.8% lower and trim its gain for
the year so far to 99.6%.
___
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
