US equities decline as Treasury yields surge and tech sector faces pressure

US equities declined on Tuesday as rising Treasury yields and a pullback in technology stocks weighed on investor sentiment, despite signs of progress in US-Iran peace negotiations. The Nasdaq Composite fell approximately 1.2%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.8%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased by 0.5%. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rose above 4.6%, while the 30-year yield briefly hit 5.2%, driven by inflation concerns and geopolitical tensions in the Strait of Hormuz.

Oil prices retreated after President Trump halted planned military strikes on Iran following appeals from Gulf allies. Futures on Brent crude fell 1.3% to trade just below $111 per barrel, while US benchmark WTI crude gave up 0.9% to trade below $103.50. The release of Nvidia earnings on Wednesday is expected to be a key market focus, given the company’s status as a bellwether for the AI trade.

In corporate news, OpenAI founding member Andrej Karpathy joined Anthropic, citing the formative nature of the next few years for large language models. Tesla shares fell 3.5%, leading declines among the 'Magnificent Seven' stocks, amid investor concerns that CEO Elon Musk’s attention may shift to SpaceX’s upcoming initial public offering.

SpaceX reportedly issued a 5-for-1 share split ahead of its IPO, which could list on the Nasdaq as early as June 12. Blackstone and Google announced a new artificial intelligence computing firm, introducing competition for cloud providers CoreWeave and Nebius, whose shares fell approximately 3%.

Asian markets showed mixed performance: the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia rose 0.9%, while South Korea’s Kospi sank more than 3.5% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.6%. Home Depot reaffirmed its 2026 outlook, reporting adjusted earnings of $3.43 per share, beating expectations, despite same-store sales growth of 0.6% missing the Street’s outlook of 0.9%.