Dow rises as oil falls, cybersecurity stocks pull back on Wall Street

The Dow climbed 288 points, or 0.6%, but the broader market was far less decisive as a sharp selloff in cybersecurity stocks offset gains elsewhere. The S&P 500 was up just 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.2%, a split-screen session that showed how little the headline averages revealed about the churn underneath.

Zscaler led the reversal, plunging 29% after it issued disappointing revenue guidance for the current quarter. Palo Alto Networks fell more than 2% and CrowdStrike lost more than 3% in sympathy, while the Global X Cybersecurity ETF, known by its BUG ticker, dropped more than 4%. The move marked a clear break from May’s run, when cybersecurity had been one of the market’s hottest pockets and investors had treated the group as a favored AI-adjacent trade.

That enthusiasm had been substantial. Yahoo Finance reported May 22 that the First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF was up about 25% for the month, and that CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Datadog, Fortinet and Cisco had each added tens of billions of dollars in market value in May. Wednesday’s pullback suggested that some of those gains had become crowded, especially after a stretch of record-setting buying. Cybersecurity had been breaking out to new highs just as semiconductors were recovering from their latest pullback, making the selloff look less like an isolated earnings reaction than a broader check on momentum.

The market’s tone was also helped by falling oil prices. U.S. crude dropped 4% to below $90 a barrel after Iran state TV said the country was committed to restoring commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war levels within one month. That eased some of the geopolitical pressure that had kept traders cautious, and it followed Monday’s lift from President Donald Trump’s comment that talks with Iran were “proceeding nicely.” Lower oil prices can soften inflation fears and improve risk appetite, but Wednesday’s session showed that the benefit was selective: energy-sensitive shares drew support, while richly owned cybersecurity names took the hit.

Micron remained a counterweight to the weakness in software security shares. The chipmaker was last up almost 4% after surging 19% on Tuesday, a move that pushed its market capitalization above $1 trillion for the first time. The company’s advance helped keep the technology narrative alive, but the day’s trading made clear that investors were no longer buying every AI-linked or security-themed name indiscriminately. In a market setting fresh records one day and digesting them the next, leadership is narrowing fast.