US STOCKS-Wall St mixed, set for weekly gains as investors watch Middle East negotiations

* Indexes: Dow down 0.57%, S&P 500 off 0.17%, Nasdaq up 0.20%

* March CPI rises 3.3%, in line with estimates

* Consumer sentiment tumbles to record low

* CoreWeave (CRWV) gains after deal with Anthropic

* S&P 500, Nasdaq set for biggest weekly jump since November (Updates to mid-afternoon)

By Stephen Culp and Purvi Agarwal

April 10 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were mixed on Friday, with investors pressing pause as they headed into the weekend and kept an eye on ongoing Middle East peace negotiations.

A closely watched inflation report showed consumer price growth accelerated as expected, due to price pressures arising from the war on Iran.

The S&P 500 and the Dow were modestly lower, while tech stocks held the Nasdaq aloft as investors assessed unfolding developments in the Middle East. The fragile two-week truce has been threatened by claimed violations of the ceasefire. These included Israel's continued bombardment of Lebanon, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was seeking direct talks with Beirut.

The vital Strait of Hormuz was kept closed by Iran, which demanded a ceasefire in Lebanon and the unfreezing of assets as a condition to resuming negotiations.

The week began on an ominous note, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to destroy "an entire civilization" if Iran failed to comply with his demands. But as a truce began to take shape, stocks rallied.

On a weekly basis, all three indexes were on track to score their largest Friday-to-Friday percentage gains since November.

"Geopolitics are so front and center; they continue to dominate the headlines and the market," said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York. "It's not fundamentals that the market's focusing on.

"There's a lot of fear out there, so many unknowns," Ghriskey added. "That area of the world is always in turmoil and it's going to be hard for the U.S. to extract itself from it."

The Labor Department's consumer price index (CPI), the first major inflation indicator released since the onset of the war, showed consumer prices logged their largest monthly jump in nearly four years due to an expected spike in energy prices, which prompted a 21.2% surge at the gasoline pump.

Core CPI, which strips out food and energy, was cooler than analysts anticipated. Still, the shock from spiking crude prices is likely to be felt more acutely in the coming months.

On Thursday, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly told Reuters the oil shock from the Iran war would extend the timeline on bringing inflation back to the U.S. central bank's 2% target.

A separate report from the University of Michigan showed consumer sentiment plunged this month to a record low, while near-term expectations dropped to their lowest level since May 1980.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 274.88 points, or 0.57%, to 47,912.20, the S&P 500 lost 11.41 points, or 0.17%, to 6,813.24 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 46.00 points, or 0.20%, to 22,868.84.

Of the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500, consumer staples were down the most, while tech shares led the gainers.

Chipmakers took the lead, touching a record high. Broadcom (AVGO) and Nvidia (NVDA) advanced 5.3% and 2.6%, respectively.

Financial stocks underperformed ahead of major U.S. banks posting earnings next week, marking the unofficial start of first-quarter reporting season. Analysts currently predict aggregate year-on-year S&P 500 earnings growth of 13.9%, according to LSEG.

"Hopefully earnings season might switch at least some of the narrative back to corporate fundamentals, which is really what the stock market's all about," Ghriskey said.

U.S.-listed shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) , the world's largest contract chipmaker, rose 1.8% after it beat first-quarter revenue forecasts.

CoreWeave (CRWV) surged 12.8% following its announcement of a multi-year agreement with Anthropic.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.25-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 145 new highs and 70 new lows on the NYSE.

On the Nasdaq, 1,776 stocks rose and 2,822 fell as declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.59-to-1 ratio.

The S&P 500 posted 22 new 52-week highs and 23 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 98 new highs and 127 new lows.

(Reporting by Stephen Culp; Additional reporting by Purvi Agarwal and Avinash P in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio)