Wall Street closes mixed with tech rise, oil decline

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK (AA) - Wall Street closed mixed Tuesday as decline in oil prices was balanced with gains in stocks of tech companies.

The Dow fell 36 points to finish at 20,975 and the S&P lost two points to hit 2,396.

The Nasdaq, however, added 17 points to end the day at 6,120 -- a new all-time closing high.

Automaker and energy storage company Tesla saw its shares jump 4.5 percent, while Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba had its stock price rise 2.7 percent.

Crude oil prices, on the other hand, lost more than 1 percent Thursday after the U.S.' Energy Information Administration (EIA) revised down its oil price forecast for this year by $1 a barrel.

At the final bell, the American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading at $45.94 with a 1.1-percent loss. International benchmark Brent crude was down 1.2 percent at $48.74.

The EIA estimates WTI to average $51 a barrel this year, and Brent crude to average $53 a barrel, according to its Short-Term Energy Outlook for May.