records on – US stocks pushed into fresh record territory as investors digested a strong JOLTS jobs report and weighed big moves across AI, tech, and oil. But the day’s winners and losers were stark—Alphabet fell after an $80 billion AI raise, HPE surged on record AI-drive
The market hit another set of records—then acted like it couldn’t quite shake the worry.
On Tuesday, US stocks edged higher as investors balanced fresh momentum in artificial intelligence with uncertainty in the Middle East. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5% to notch a fresh record close. the benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.1% to post a new all-time high. and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also edged up slightly. building on Monday’s record highs.
For all the green on the screen, some of the biggest technology names didn’t share the celebration. Alphabet shares fell after the company said it aims to raise $80 billion to realize its AI infrastructure plans. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, however, reported a record quarter driven by AI data center expansion, sending its stock soaring.
The tension didn’t stay inside corporate earnings. It spilled into energy trading and the direction of the US-Iran story—two forces that have been feeding the same investor nerves for weeks.
Oil prices turned higher and then moved around the edge of volatility. Brent crude futures rose 1% to trade near $96 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose above $93 a barrel.
Earlier. sentiment had improved through Tuesday morning after a diplomatic signal that sounded like risk was easing. even if it wasn’t fully resolved. On Monday. President Trump intervened in a news cycle that had been pointing to a breakdown in US-Iran negotiations. announcing Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop attacks. Shortly after, the president added that talks with Iran were continuing “at a rapid pace.”.
By the open on Tuesday, the market itself reflected how much traders were still weighing the same uncertainties. The Dow rose 0.3%, the S&P 500 fell 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.5%. Oil eased at the open after news that leaders of Israel and Hezbollah had negotiated a tentative ceasefire in Beirut. Lebanon. while President Trump said talks with Iran were progressing. Brent crude futures were falling 0.3% to trade near $94.60 a barrel, and WTI futures dropped below $92 a barrel.
At the center of the day’s optimism was a jobs report that looked strong enough to keep investors comfortable—at least for now.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed the US economy added 7.6 million job openings in April, a big beat compared with estimates of 6.89 million openings. The JOLTS report was also the first in a sequence of employment data releases that culminate with the May jobs report on Friday.
More detail followed inside the same set of numbers: US job openings rose to 7.62 million in April, outpacing estimates of 6.866 million openings and the previous month’s revised tally of 6.89 million openings. The count of job openings was the highest since May 2024’s 7.78 million openings.
Layoffs fell to 1.69 million on the month, down from March’s count of 1.88 million. Quits fell to 2.99 million from the previous month’s 3.16 million—an indicator economists have described in terms of a “no hire, no fire” economy.
The report also showed where the changes were happening. The professional and business services sector accounted for nearly all of the month-on-month increase, adding 668,000 jobs in April after losing 256,000 in March. The financial activities sector led losses, dropping 134,000 jobs in April.
In the background, interest-rate caution lingered even as stocks pushed higher.
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack warned Tuesday that it may soon be time to raise interest rates if rising prices start to become embedded in the economy. In a speech in Cleveland. she said. “For today. it’s reasonable to keep rates steady given the uncertainties around the economic outlook.” She added. “But if recent trends continue. it may soon be appropriate to act.”.
Hammack said she was more concerned about the growing risks of persistently elevated inflation than the risks to full employment. She also noted that interest rates may not be sufficiently restrictive to bring inflation down to 2%. “If we wait for definitive evidence that high inflation has become embedded in the economy. it may require larger policy adjustments. at greater cost. ” she warned.
Even as the broad market looked calm, the day’s sector moves weren’t.
Alphabet’s AI financing plan weighed on the stock as investors processed the cost of building. Against that, Hewlett Packard Enterprise looked like a cleaner bet: record second-quarter earnings driven by enterprise investment in AI infrastructure.
HPE was poised to open more than 23% higher after the server and networking products maker reported record second quarter earnings. The company also raised its full-year outlook while accelerating its long-term financial goals by two years. forecasting demand for its servers would remain strong well into 2027.
CEO Antonio Neri said during the company’s earnings call on Monday afternoon that traditional server orders increased triple digits as customers modernized compute infrastructure and invested in AI inferencing. He added that orders more than doubled, significantly outpacing revenue, resulting in a record company backlog.
Elsewhere in the AI and cybersecurity crowd, the mood was split. Microsoft was turning to AI to combat cyber threats with a new class of models capable of finding and exploiting software flaws faster than any person could on their own. The company’s new Microsoft Security multi-modal agentic scanning harness—MDASH—was described as being in an expanded preview. Microsoft said the platform uses AI agents to scan for vulnerabilities in software that hackers can exploit.
Speed is a key part of cybersecurity, and the faster a company can detect a flaw, the faster it can fix it before hackers exploit it. Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft CVP of security, said: “AI brings a lot of superpowers to defenders, but also AI in the hands of cyber attackers is a very powerful tool.”
But with Palo Alto Networks’ results due after the bell, cybersecurity stocks mostly edged lower. Wall Street expected Palo Alto Networks to post about $2.94 billion in revenue for the latest quarter, representing almost 29% year-over-year growth. Peer CrowdStrike edged lower too, while SailPoint gained almost 1%. The First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF climbed last month. beating both the iShares Semiconductor ETF and the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF.
Palantir stock also slid, down more than 4% as software names broadly came under pressure. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF, which includes Palantir among its top holdings, declined 3% on Tuesday, pushing its year-to-date returns back into negative territory.
The drop came even after optimism earlier this month. On Monday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s bullish comments suggested artificial intelligence would increase—rather than decrease—demand for software. That optimism didn’t hold through Tuesday.
Software stocks and chip stocks have frequently moved differently this year as the AI trade splits into two sides. Under pressure on Tuesday were Microsoft, down 3%; Intuit, down 9%; Snowflake, down 7%; and CrowdStrike, down 2%.
Beyond stocks, crypto didn’t escape the shakeout. Bitcoin dropped more than 5% on Tuesday to hover below $68,000, its lowest level since April 8.
The selloff came amid multiple headwinds, including sentiment souring after major holder Strategy sold tokens for the first time since 2022. On Monday. Strategy offloaded around $2.5 million of its massive $59 billion bitcoin position—an action described as a shift away from the aggressive buy-and-hold approach that made it one of bitcoin’s biggest institutional backers and industry cheerleaders.
The sale was framed as small compared with Strategy’s overall holdings, but the timing stood out. Spot bitcoin ETFs saw outflows for 11 consecutive days, nearing $3.5 billion over that stretch.
Meanwhile, oil and the US-Iran thread remained tightly tied to market instincts.
One commodity executive argued leaders weren’t confronting the full scope of the risk. Tom Baker. Vitol’s top leader in the Middle East. told the S&P Global Middle East Petroleum & Gas Conference in London that in Europe and the US. “everyone is kind of asleep at the wheel and just carrying on life as normal. ” according to comments reported at the event.
Brent crude and US WTI moderated under $100 per barrel in recent weeks, but experts cautioned that prices stayed lower than expected because of releases of strategic reserves and drawdowns in commercial inventories.
Three months into the conflict, global oil stocks were approaching critical operational minimums. If they were surpassed, prices would likely push higher. Refined products like diesel. gasoline. and jet fuel had already seen prices move more significantly as supplies dwindled. with no stable supply of crude oil to backfill.
In the US, gasoline averaged $4.29 per gallon at the pump on Tuesday, with summer driving season ahead—demand for gasoline and diesel could rise further.
Even with all the market’s records, the week’s trading still had deadlines and catalysts. Earnings season continued to wind down this week with Palo Alto Networks and Ulta Beauty scheduled to report results on Tuesday. Victoria’s Secret beat estimates on both the top and bottom lines, sending its stock soaring.
And in the wider AI race, Anthropic said it was expanding access to its Mythos model to approximately 150 additional organizations. The new organizations were spread across sectors that “weren’t well-represented in [the] initial cohort. ” including power. water. communications. and healthcare. The number of partners involved in Anthropic’s Project Glasswing was said to be around 200. Each partner organization must pass a security clearance before gaining access to the Mythos model. which was reported as having advanced cybersecurity and hacking abilities that could pose serious threats to national security and other critical infrastructure.
Anthropic said it was allowing key organizations access so they could use the model to harden their own cybersecurity defenses. It said the initial cohort of roughly 50 partners had already found more than 10,000 “high or critical severity” security flaws. Anthropic wrote that for most partners a major attack could affect more than 100 million people. with ramifications for global and national security.
The company also filed confidential paperwork with the SEC on Monday for a public offering, paving the way for what was expected to be one of the largest and most closely watched IPOs of the year.
By the time the session looked like it was settling into the record-building rhythm. investors still had to answer the same unspoken question: how much of today’s strength is broad momentum—and how much is a high-wire bet on AI and energy. while the Middle East story keeps flipping between reassurance and uncertainty?.
Dow S&P 500 Nasdaq JOLTS AI Alphabet Hewlett Packard Enterprise cybersecurity Palo Alto Networks CrowdStrike oil Brent crude WTI US-Iran tensions Bitcoin Strategy Anthropic Mythos