The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) and the S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped below the flat line. "We are only semi-negotiating with them," Trump told Axios. Oil prices rose even after Pakistan's defense minister, Khawaja Asif, told reporters that the US and Iran were "close to some sort of arrangement." The persistently high oil prices and an unclear path to end the war built anticipation toward Wednesday's Consumer Price Index (CPI) report. At the same time, new fundraising efforts by Intel (INTC), Nvidia (NVDA), and others are renewing scrutiny into the capital-intensive AI build-out.