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WALL STREET INCHES UP TO CLOSING RECORDS

The S&P 500 .SPX, the Dow .DJI, and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC registered record closing highs on Tuesday, but their advances were modest with pressure from megacap stocks such as Microsoft MSFT.O and Google's parent Alphabet GOOGL.O.

And it didn't help the broader market that progress toward a U.S.-Iran peace deal looked to be in limbo with contradictory messages from both sides. Iranian media reported on Tuesday that Iran is reviewing a proposed agreement with the U.S. to halt its war, but has not communicated with Washington for a few days. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump said negotiations had been going on continuously.

Still, there was nothing indecisive about Tuesday's chip stock rally with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index .SOX jumping 5.9% to a record close. This was its second closing record in a row. It was boosted by a dramatic 32% rally in Marvell Technology MRVL.O shares after Nvidia NVDA.O CEO Jensen Huang called the chipmaker the next "trillion-dollar company."

And possibly because it was chips' turn to rally, the software sector went into reverse with the iShares Expanded tech-software ETF IGV.N finishing down 2.8% after a three-day rally. The S&P 500 Software & Services index .SPLRCIS lost 3.3%, also snapping a three-day rally.

While the broader S&P 500 technology sector .SPLRCT had a smaller 0.9% gain, it celebrated a closing record for the fourth straight session.

The biggest laggard among the S&P 500's 11 major sectors was Communication Services .SPLRCL with Alphabet being its second-biggest percentage loser, falling 3.9%.

Among the Wall Street majors, the Dow was out front, finishing up 0.45% with its biggest gain from Cisco Systems CSCO.O, which rose 5.5%, after it announced new software tools that businesses can use to build their own armies of bots known as AI agents, to protect themselves against cybersecurity threats.

Here is your closing snapshot:

(Sinéad Carew, Terence Gabriel)

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