Stocks Drop as US-Iranian Hopes Are Offsets by SpaceX’s Rout – US Market Wrap

Wall Street traders dragged equities down from record highs as a drop in key tech titans trumped excitement over progress in US-Iran peace negotiations. Oil retreated.
Equities fell, with Alphabet leading losses among megacaps. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.3%. SpaceX’s stock fell 16%, dropping below the closing price on its first day of trade. Elon Musk’s company is issuing investment-grade notes for the first time, as part of a major borrowing spree to fund AI ambitions. Rising Treasury yields also weighed on sentiment. Brent crude settled below $78.
Expectations for a long-term peace solution in the Middle East, a resurrection of the AI trade, and strong corporate results have propelled a nearly 20% increase in the US equity benchmark from wartime lows.
Alphabet plummeted when Google DeepMind Vice President John Jumper, who earned the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on AI, announced his departure to join Anthropic PBC. SpaceX has signed a multibillion-dollar arrangement to give computing power to an artificial intelligence business. Reflection AI is the latest in a succession of transactions for Elon Musk’s company as it seeks to become an AI infrastructure provider.