US stocks recover some of last week's sell-off after oil prices fall sharply

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is rising Monday and recovering some of last week's sell-off that was led by the tech and AI industries.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.3%, coming off its third straight losing week, and pulled within 2.8% of its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 494 points, or 1%, as of 12:50 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

Stocks got a lift from sharp drops for oil prices, which headed back down in their latest yo-yo move on uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow the global industry to return to normal. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 7.5% to $104.92.

The price for the most actively traded contract in the Brent market has been veering between roughly $70 and $120 per barrel since just before the war began, and it’s been quick to reverse direction.

So have stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry, which have been shaky for months amid criticism that they surged too high and are in a bubble. Worries are growing that all the hundreds of billions of dollars Big Tech companies are pouring into AI data centers won’t yield enough productivity and profit to make the investments worth it.