Oil prices are sliding after their latest $100-a-barrel spike. Brent crude pulled below the threshold on Monday, dropping as much as 4% to around $99 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate also fell as much as 5%, trading around $95. The move lower reverberated throughout markets, with Treasury yields cooling while US stocks jumped. The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield stood around 4.96%, pulling back from the critical 5% threshold. All three major benchmark indexes ticked higher, with the Nasdaq 100 rising more than 2%.

Chip stocks rebounded after a week of volatile trading, driven largely by optimism stemming from Meta's AI assistant, Muse. The AI model has drawn more attention on potential demand for CPUs as opposed to GPUs in the AI race, leading Meta shares to climb 12% higher. Intel rose 11%, AMD and Samsung each gained 8%, while Nvidia and Micron added 2% and Broadcom 1%.

The US-Iran war, though, is still on, with no signs of a resolution anytime soon. The Iran-backed Houthis said they launched a fresh attack on Saudi Arabia over the weekend. The US State Department also warned of the potential for escalating conflict in the Middle East on Saturday, advising Americans to reconsider any travel plans to the region.

So, what's behind the latest slide in oil prices? Oil flows remain strong for now. The market has serious reservations about supply coming out of the Middle East, particularly after a key Saudi oil pipeline was attacked last week. But so far, oil flows coming out of the region remain "surprisingly strong," analysts at JPMorgan wrote in a note last week. The bank estimated that oil flows from the region averaged 17.1 million barrels a day over the 10 days leading up to September 18, about 6.1 million barrels a day below last year's average. Over the weekend, the US Central Command said oil and liquefied natural gas shipments coming through the Strait of Hormuz had also reached a six-month high over the last two-week period.