Dow gains 925 points on falling oil, but AI selloff drags Nasdaq lower

U.S. stocks closed mixed Wednesday as a sharp drop in oil prices sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 925 points, but a broad selloff in artificial intelligence stocks pushed the Nasdaq Composite into the red.

The session snapped the S&P 500's nine-week winning streak — its longest run in three years — highlighting a growing divide between traditional industries benefiting from lower energy costs and richly valued AI technology companies now facing heightened investor scrutiny.

Brent crude fell 2.8% to $95.10 a barrel amid expectations that Iran and the United States would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, easing energy-supply fears and lifting rate-sensitive sectors. About three-quarters of S&P 500 components closed higher, while the small-cap Russell 2000 gained 1.2%, according to The Korea Times. The S&P 500 itself edged up 0.3%.

The AI sector bore the session's sharpest losses despite robust earnings. Broadcom tumbled 14.7% even after reporting $10.8 billion in AI chip revenue for the quarter — more than double its year-ago result — and projecting growth exceeding 200% in the current period. Micron Technology fell 6.5% and CrowdStrike Holdings dropped 6.1%.

CrowdStrike Chief Executive George Kurtz said the latest quarter was when "the worlds of cybersecurity and frontier AI collided," marking the company's deepening push into AI-powered security tools. Despite Wednesday's decline, CrowdStrike is still up 59.5% year to date, and Broadcom has gained 38.5% since January, The Korea Times reported.

PVH Corp., the parent of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, fell 21.5% after Chief Executive Stefan Larsson warned of "the prolonged effects of the Middle East conflict, which is putting pressure on" customers in the region. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield held at 4.46%.

Asian markets closed lower ahead of Wall Street's session. South Korea's Kospi fell 1.8%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 1.5% and Japan's Nikkei declined 1.4%, The Korea Times reported.

The S&P 500's nine-week winning streak — the longest in three years — came to an end Wednesday as investors rotated out of high-flying AI names, even as broader market breadth and falling oil prices offered a more optimistic backdrop for the wider economy.