Financial Markets                      06/16 09:33

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices are sinking again Tuesday and pulled back to $80 
per barrel for the first time since early March, while the U.S. stock market 
drifts near its all-time high.

   The S&P 500 rose 0.1% following a rally that's brought it back within 0.6% 
of its record set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 
395 points, or 0.8%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 
virtually unchanged.

   The price for a barrel of Brent crude fell 3.2% as optimism continues 
following the tentative deal reached between the United States and Iran that 
will hopefully reopen the Strait of Hormuz at the end of the week and get the 
global flow of oil going again. It was at $80.50 after earlier dropping as low 
as $79.61.

   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.

   On Wall Street, stocks benefiting from the boom in artificial-intelligence 
technology were mixed following their vicious swings over the last couple 
weeks. They have been leading the market up and down amid worries that their 
stock prices shot too high, too quickly in the mania around AI. That's taken a 
toll because chip companies and other AI winners have grown so big that they've 
become some of Wall Street's most influential stocks.

   On Tuesday, Seagate Technology rose 5%, but Nvidia slipped 1.5%.

   SpaceX rose 9.1% toward a 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 4.1% 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.

   Robinhood Markets added 0.8% after the investing platform said in a 
regulatory filing that it's laying off about 10% of its full-time employees.

   On the losing end of the market was Dave & Buster's Entertainment, which 
sank 2.5% after reporting a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts 
expected. Revenue fell 1.5% from a year earlier.

   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 is beginning its own meeting on what to do with interest 
rates Tuesday, with an announcement on the decision coming Wednesday.

   It will be 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 eased to 4.45% from 
4.47% late Monday.

   ___

   AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

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