US stocks today: US stocks end higher, boosted by tech gains, US-Iran peace hopes

Wall Street stocks posted modest gains on ​Monday as investors watched developments in U.S.-Iran peace negotiations and cheered the unveiling of a new computer chip that promises to bring artificial intelligence to personal computing.

Tech shares boosted the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 to their latest in a series of record closing highs.

U.S. President Donald ‌Trump said talks ⁠with Iran ⁠continue. Earlier, Iran’s news agency announced Tehran is halting indirect negotiations with Washington after a new round of strikes threatened to derail diplomatic efforts to ​end the war, now in its fourth month.

The intensification of hostilities sent crude prices jumping, along with worries over the extent to which ​a protracted war could result in heightened, intransitory inflation.

“We don’t really know where things stand,” said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT in Atlanta. “The market seems to think that something’s going to get done at some point, but we don’t have ​very good information to go on, like what the Iranians really want and ⁠what Trump ‌is willing to settle for.”

Stocks added to their gains after Trump said no Israeli troops would ​go into Beirut, ​citing a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Nvidia jumped after the company unveiled a ⁠new chip that puts AI capabilities directly into personal computers.The chip is the ​result of a three-year partnership with Microsoft to “reinvent the PC” for the AI era, ​Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. Microsoft shares rose.

The reaction among semiconductor stocks was mixed. Qualcomm tumbled and while Intel also fell. Micron shares rose sharply, breaching the $1,000 mark for the first time.

The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index advanced.

In economic news, U.S. factory activity expanded in May for the fifth consecutive month as goods-makers navigate tariff and geopolitical crosswinds.

Investors will turn to Friday’s jobs report ahead of Kevin Warsh’s debut policy meeting as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve this month, amid fears ‌of rising inflation linked to the Iran war that could upend the stock market rally.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 gained 20.19 points, or 0.27%, to end at 7,600.03 points, while the ​Nasdaq Composite gained ​114.75 points, or 0.43%, to 27,087.37. ⁠The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 44.70 points, or 0.09%, to 51,076.85.

Software stocks rebounded from heavy selling earlier this year on AI disruption fears. ServiceNow and IBM rose sharply. The software services index advanced.

“On the software side, companies that hadn’t ​been doing very well, but now are doing well today,” Martin added. “Some of that has been attributed to Nvidia comments that software is part of the solution, so the market’s coming back to” software stocks.

Cadence Design Systems jumped after launching an Nvidia-powered AI agent for chip design.

Broadcom’s earnings, due on Wednesday, will be closely parsed in the wake of solid results from Dell last week, which signaled strong AI server demand.