U.S. stocks traded slightly lower on Monday, marked by cautious sentiment. Chip stocks, however, rebounded strongly after a significant selloff late last week, with Micron, Sandisk, and Seagate showing notable gains. This recovery occurred despite Alibaba's unveiling of a new AI model, Qwen3.8 Max, which it claims is highly advanced.

Global oil prices saw a slight pullback after briefly surpassing $90 a barrel, influenced by renewed U.S.-Iran tensions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 307.16 points (0.59%), the S&P 500 declined 0.19%, and the Nasdaq composite edged down 0.05%. Advancing issues on the NYSE slightly outnumbered declining ones.

The rebound in chip stocks contrasted sharply with Friday's performance, where the same companies experienced substantial losses. The market's muted reaction to Alibaba's AI announcement differed from the significant selloff triggered by Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 the previous day.