By Megan Leonhardt

Mixed Message. Stocks spent the day swinging between positive and negative territory as investors digested mixed messages from the Trump administration and Iranian officials about back-channel diplomacy that could put an end to the current conflict.

Oil prices, while off from their intraday highs, ended the day up, which helped push all three major indexes into the red by the close.

The Nasdaq Composite slid 0.8%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 84 points, or 0.2%.

But it wasn't just the continued strain of the Iranian conflict -- the software stock selloff resumed today, as well. And private credit worries were back in the headlines, with Apollo Global Management capping cash outs at its $25 billion debt fund, Apollo Debt Solutions.

My colleague Bill Alpert reported that investors sought to withdraw $1.6 billion, or about 11.5% of the fund's $15 billion in net assets (after accounting for the fund's own debt). But Apollo said today that it was planning to limit the repurchase of investor shares to 5%, or about $730 million, in a quarter.

And Apollo isn't the only one making those kind of moves -- BlackRock and Morgan Stanley have also limited redemption. Bill notes:

The sector's fall from popularity has opened up an opportunity for arbitrage. The shares of public funds, like Ares Capital Corp., and Blue Owl Capital Corp., are selling at 90% and 75% of their respective net asset values, while private funds run by the same firms will cash out investors at 100% of net asset value. That means an investor can cash out of a private fund and then buy into a similar public fund that's selling for 25% less.

Meanwhile, renewed AI worries pushed software stocks down sharply. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF ended the day down 4.3%.

The abilities of so-called agents have been at the heart of the software selloff this year. Sure enough, a new set of agent launches from AI start-up Anthropic triggered the latest round of selling, Barron's George Glover and Adam Levine report:

The first release was a new version of Cowork that has increased abilities to control a Mac and everything on it. What's more, it can be remotely operated through the Claude phone app. ... Later on Monday, the start-up issued a new report based on its Anthropic Economic Index, an attempt to gauge the economic effects of AI. One of the report's main conclusions was that use of all Anthropic's Claude tools is beginning to broaden away from coding toward office, administrative, financial, and management tasks. This is the type of thing we should be seeing happening if AI is indeed going to replace human work.

Read the rest of their software update here.

The Hot Stock: Lumentum +10.0% The Biggest Loser: Axon Enterprise -10.0%

Best Sector: Energy +2.1% Worst Sector: Communication Services -2.5%

Higher Prices In, Higher Prices Out

S&P Global's purchasing managers' indexes for both manufacturing and services aren't typically a must-watch release for investors. But on Tuesday, the PMI data became the first batch of economic indicators that encompass the effects of the Iranian war.

The results were largely as expected: the war is making things more expensive. The manufacturing index was a bit higher than expected; services a bit lower. Overall, business activity growth slowed to an 11-month low, with companies reporting the expected spike in prices and slightly softer demand in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East.

More interesting, perhaps, than input costs accelerating was the fact that businesses reported raising prices. S&P Global reported seeing "the largest increase in average selling prices since August 2022."

This is more evidence -- along with the recent producer price index data and a report from the Institute for Supply Management -- that inflationary pressure is mounting in the supply pipeline.

In addition to the higher potential for inflation, Tuesday's PMI data showed lower employment as "firms generally sought to reduce overheads in the uncertain economic climate." All in all, trends are stable, but there's not a lot of good news to be had either.

The Calendar

Chewy, Cintas, JBS, Jefferies Financial Group, Paychex, and PDD Holdings report quarterly results tomorrow

What We're Reading Today

   -- Oil Prices Haven't Peaked: Chevron CEO Issues a Stark Warning 
 
   -- Travel Chaos Across U.S. as LaGuardia Airport Faces More Disruption After 
      Fatal Crash 
 
   -- Apollo Caps Cashouts at Its $25 Billion Debt Fund. Why Investors Are 
      Rushing for the Exit. 
 
   -- Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP Rise. How the Iran War Has Made Crypto Calls 
      Tougher. 
 
   -- FedEx Ramps Up Same-Day Delivery Competition With Amazon 

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March 24, 2026 19:55 ET (23:55 GMT)

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