By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Oil prices\u00a0sank again<\/a>\u00a0Tuesday 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.<\/p>\n The S&P 500 slipped 0.6% and pulled 1.3% below\u00a0its record<\/a>\u00a0set 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%.<\/p>\n Stocks that had benefited from the boom in\u00a0artificial-intelligence<\/a>\u00a0technology weighed on the market in particular following vicious swings over the last couple weeks.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve been leading the market\u00a0up<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0down<\/a>\u00a0amid worries that their stock prices shot too high in the mania around AI. That\u2019s taken a toll because chip companies, makers of computer memory and other AI winners have grown so massive that they\u2019ve become some of\u00a0Wall Street\u2019s most influential stocks<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Dave & Buster\u2019s 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\u2019s laying off about 10% of its full-time employees.<\/p>\n On the winning side of Wall Street was SpaceX, which rose 4.8% for its third straight gain since\u00a0its debut on the U.S. stock market<\/a>. It said\u00a0it\u2019s moving forward with a purchase of Cursor<\/a>, a popular AI coding assistant, valuing it at $60 billion.<\/p>\n Yum Brands climbed 1.9% after it said it\u2019s\u00a0selling the Pizza Hut chain for $2.7 billion<\/a>. Most of the restaurants will go to LongRange Capital, a private equity firm. Those in mainland China will go to Yum China Holdings.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The strongest action was in the oil market, where optimism continued that\u00a0a tentative U.S.-Iran deal on their war<\/a>\u00a0will reopen the\u00a0Strait of Hormuz<\/a>\u00a0at 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.<\/p>\n Significant hurdles remain<\/a>\u00a0in the negotiations, including what to do with Iran\u2019s nuclear program. But the hope on Wall Street is that this agreement will mean a long-term fix to a conflict that has worsened\u00a0inflation<\/a>\u00a0around\u00a0the world<\/a>. The price of Brent has come down sharply from its $100-plus level of a few weeks ago, though it could still take\u00a0months for the energy industry to get back to full speed<\/a>.<\/p>\n In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a mixed performance in Asia.<\/p>\n Tokyo\u2019s Nikkei 225 briefly topped 70,000 for the first time before ending with a modest gain of 0.1% after the\u00a0Bank of Japan<\/a>\u00a0raised its benchmark interest rate to 1%. That\u2019s its highest level in three decades, and it followed a similar move\u00a0by the European Central Bank<\/a>\u00a0last week.<\/p>\n The Federal Reserve<\/a>\u00a0began its own meeting on what to do with interest rates Tuesday, with an announcement on the decision scheduled for Wednesday.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the first meeting under the Fed\u2019s new chair,\u00a0Kevin Warsh<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n