The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite fell on Monday, dragged by chipmakers. Concretely, the former dropped 0.4%, while the latter declined further, closing 1.3% down. In contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Climbed 0.3%, led by Caterpillar.
The tech-heavy index was dragged by large tech names, including chipmakers. CNBC Noted that Alphabet shares declined by 5% after top AI officials left the company.
The outlet said that the president of engineering and co-lead of its Gemini models, Noam Shazeer, is leaving to join OpenAI. John Jumper, DeepMind vice president and engineering fellow, said he is leaving as well and joining Anthropic.
Elsewhere, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft also fell. SpaceX stood out, plunging by more than 16%, notching its third straight day of losses and returning close to its opening price of $154.
The company announced a bond sale on Monday, saying it will use the funds to pay for bridge financing and general purpose needs.
CNBC noted that last week there were reports claiming that the company was seeking to raise about $20 billion in the bond sale to also fund its AI plans, which include potentially building data centers in space.
Market watchers are closely waiting for Thursday's inflation reading, with figures expected to raise as a result of energy price increases resulting from the war in Iran.
However, oil prices continued to drop following progress in talks between the U.S. and Iran and the Treasury Department's authorization of Iranian oil sales under a 60-day license.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, dropped close to 3% and stood at $77.84 a barrel at 4:13 p.m., while West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, fell 2.14% and clocked in at $74.23 at the same time.
"In line with the ongoing productive talks in Switzerland, Iran has committed to free and open transit in the Strait of Hormuz and to permit International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into their country. As part of the framework, Treasury has issued a temporary 60-day general license authorizing the production, delivery, and sale of Iranian oil," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a social media post.
Vice President JD Vance confirmed the development on Monday, noting that coordination between the countries and the agency to conduct such a visit will take place "this week, maybe as soon as today."
"It's a major milestone and a first step in permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran," Vance added.
Axios detailed that the U.S. wanted the first round of talks in Switzerland to end with an invitation from Tehran for inspectors to visit key nuclear sites.
Vance, however, did not specify what kind of access the inspectors would have, especially considering that the nuclear sites were bombed by the U.S. in June 2025, in the context of the war between Israel and Iran.
