Stock Market Today: Dow flat, Nasdaq and S&P 500 edge higher as oil prices fall and chip stocks bounce

Wall Street finished Tuesday's session mixed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average flat while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 edged higher. Falling oil prices and a bounce in chip stocks drove the tone, according to MarketWatch's market coverage.

The split tells the story. The Dow, weighted toward industrials, financials and energy-linked names, made no headway. The Nasdaq and S&P 500, where semiconductor shares carry outsized weight, picked up modest gains. That divergence points to a rotation back into chips as the day's main source of buying pressure.

Oil's decline is the second input. A drop in crude eases cost pressure across transport and manufacturing and can lighten inflation worries. It also typically weighs on energy shares, a group that sits inside the Dow and S&P 500. The flat Dow reading fits with energy drag offsetting gains elsewhere; that is interpretation, not a reported breakdown.

The chip bounce matters because it reverses selling pressure in a group that has steered index direction. The gains in the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were modest, though, so Tuesday reads as a stabilizing session rather than a decisive breakout.