NEW YORK - Wall Street stocks posted modest gains on June 1 as investors watched developments in US-Iran peace negotiations and cheered the unveiling of a new computer chip that promises to bring artificial intelligence to personal computing.Tech shares rose 2.5 per cent, boosting the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 to the latest in a series of record closing highs, while the blue-chip Dow closed nominally higher, its gains limited by weakness in all but two of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors.US President Donald Trump said talks with Iran continue. Earlier, Iran’s news agency announced Tehran was halting indirect negotiations with Washington after a new round of strikes threatened to derail diplomatic efforts to end the war, now in its fourth month.The intensification of hostilities sent crude prices jumping, along with worries over the extent to which a protracted war could accelerate inflation.“We don’t really know where things stand,” said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT in Atlanta. “The market seems to think that something’s going to get done at some point, but we don’t have very good information to go on, like what the Iranians really want and what Trump is willing to settle for.”Stocks added to their gains after Trump said no Israeli troops would go into Beirut, citing a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Nvidia rose 6.3 per cent after the company unveiled a new chip that puts AI capabilities directly into personal computers.The chip is the result of a three-year partnership with Microsoft to “reinvent the PC” for the AI era, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. Microsoft shares added 2.3 per cent.The reaction among semiconductor stocks was mixed. Qualcomm tumbled 8.8 per cent, while Intel fell 4.7 per cent. But Micron shares breached the US$1,000 (S$1,276) mark for the first time, rising 6.6 per cent.The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index advanced 1.1 per cent.In economic news, US factory activity expanded in May for the fifth consecutive month as goods-makers navigate tariff and geopolitical crosswinds.Investors will turn to the jobs report on June 5 ahead of Kevin Warsh’s debut policy meeting as chairman of the US Federal Reserve in June, amid fears of rising inflation linked to the Iran war that could upend the stock market rally.The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 46.42 points, or 0.09 per cent, to 51,078.88, the S&P 500 gained 19.90 points, or 0.26 per cent, to 7,599.96 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 114.19 points, or 0.42 per cent, to 27,086.81.Of the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500, only technology and energy enjoyed gains, while utilities suffered the largest percentage drop.Software stocks rebounded from the heavy selling earlier in 2025 on AI disruption fears. ServiceNow and IBM rose 9.2 per cent and 7.6 per cent, respectively. The software services index advanced 4.3 per cent.“On the software side, companies that hadn’t been doing very well, but now are doing well today,” Martin added. “Some of that has been attributed to Nvidia comments that software is part of the solution, so the market’s coming back to” software stocks.Cadence Design Systems added 10.5 per cent after launching an Nvidia-powered AI agent for chip design.Broadcom’s earnings, due on June 3, will be closely parsed in the wake of solid results from Dell last week, which signaled strong AI server demand.Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.04-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 519 new highs and 144 new lows on the NYSE.On the Nasdaq, 2,436 stocks rose and 2,403 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.01-to-1 ratio.The S&P 500 posted 29 new 52-week highs and 18 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 122 new highs and 77 new lows.Volume on US exchanges was 21.80 billion shares, compared with the 19.71 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days. REUTERS