Dow Hits 50K Capping Off a Wild Week
US stocks rebounded on Friday from a weeklong tech bruising as Wall Street reassessed worries about the impact of AI disruption and the risks of hefty Big Tech spending.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led the way higher, surging by about 2.5%, or more than 1,200 points, to climb ahead of the 50,000 level for the first time.
The S&P 500 rose 2% in its best session since May of last year. The Nasdaq Composite added about 2.1%, as the indexes bounced back from Thursday's sharp closing losses and a week's worth of selling pressure.
Wall Street is ending the week with a bounce back, as Big Tech CEOs and analysts brushed aside concerns about the impact of new AI tools on legacy tech. The Dow ended the week with a gain of 2.5%, but the benchmark S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed the week in the red.
Some of tech's biggest names led the charge. Nvidia (NVDA) surged over 8%, while Broadcom (AVGO) and Tesla (TSLA) posted sizable gains. Some tech gloom persisted as Amazon's (AMZN) shares tumbled 7%. In its earnings, the major cloud provider outlined plans for a massive 2026 jump in spending to at least $200 billion, even as its forecast for operating income fell short.
The tentative risk-on tone extended beyond stocks, as bitcoin (BTC-USD) climbed steadily back to above $70,000, having touched a 16-month low overnight. But the biggest cryptocurrency is still down almost 20% year to date after wiping out all of its post-Trump election gains this week.
Strategy (MSTR), one of the companies most affected by the crypto slump, revealed a loss for the quarter. The results initially weighed on its stock, but shares were up 26% on Friday as bitcoin revived and Strategy's CEO played down concerns about debt-servicing risks.
Elsewhere, Stellantis (STLA) warned it will take a charge of over 22 billion euros ($26 billion) in a plan to scale back its EV push. Shares in the Jeep maker tanked over 20% on Wall Street and in Milan (STLAM.MI).
Looking ahead, the release of the closely watched January jobs report, originally scheduled for Friday, has been pushed to Wednesday next week. Fresh signs of trouble in the labor market emerged in recent days, as job openings sank to their lowest level since 2020 and layoff announcements surged.
Sean Conlon and Alex Harring of CNBC report the Dow surges 1,200 points for first close above 50,000 in sharp rebound from tech rout:
Stocks surged on Friday as technology stocks recovered following several days of heavy selling in the sector and bitcoin rebounded following a rout that took the popular cryptocurrency down more than 50% at one point.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1,206.95 points, or 2.47%, closing at 50,115.67. Friday marked the first time the Dow exceeded the 50,000 level. The S&P 500 jumped 1.97% and ended at 6,932.30, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.18% to 23,031.21. With those moves, the S&P 500 climbed back into the green for 2026.
Even with Friday’s pop, the S&P 500 posted a 0.1% decline for the week, while the Nasdaq fell 1.8% on the week. The 30-stock Dow rose 2.5% week to date, benefiting from some rotation into some economically cyclical stocks even as the overall market was weighed down by tech selling.
Nvidia and Broadcom were two of the key winners Friday, with the former increasing by nearly 8% and the latter growing 7% following big declines earlier in the week. Other stocks such as Oracle and Palantir Technologies also bounced back as investors reconsidered some of the names at cheaper levels. Oracle and Palantir each rose 4%. Some key software stocks like ServiceNow — which has been the epicenter of the tech sell-off because of an artificial intelligence disruption fear of software — remained weak on Friday, however.
“We’re in a gold rush right now with AI,” said Falcon Wealth Planning founder Gabriel Shahin.
“You have the investment that Google is making, Nvidia is making, that Meta is making, that Amazon is making. There is money that will be deployed,” he also said. “It’s just the carousel [of money movement] sometimes scares people.”
Shahin believes the market is in the midst of a “great recalibration,” where investors are going to move further out of growth stocks and into value. Over the coming months, his bet is on large-cap value names. That played out Friday, with investors buying up shares in areas such as industrials and financials. In those sectors, Caterpillar and Goldman Sachs were standouts, supporting the Dow’s outperformance with their rise of 7% and 4%, respectively. Small-cap stocks also saw a boost: The Russell 2000 index rallied 3.6%.
Bitcoin recouped some losses Friday, adding 10% and touching a session high of $71,458.01 after briefly sinking below $61,000 overnight to its lowest level since October 2024 — more than 52% off from its record high of $126,000 hit in early October 2025. Friday’s move higher helped ease some of the risk-off concerns among investors that recently plagued the broader market. The cryptocurrency has lost 16% this week, however.
The week was bleak heading into Friday, with the S&P 500 on pace for its worst week since last October and the Nasdaq Composite on track for its worst week since the tariff-related market plunge of last April. Friday’s pop pared those declines significantly.
Amazon was an outlier Friday, as shares sank more than 5% after the e-commerce giant posted earnings per share slightly under analyst expectations and told investors to expect $200 billion in capital expenditures this year.
Alright, what a crazy volatile week in the stock market.
On Thursday, everything remotely risky was sinking fast -- bitcoin, silver, gold, biotech, tech -- and then on Friday, it's as if the algos went from extreme Risk Off to extreme Risk On.
Just to give one of many examples, on Thursday the share price of Strategy (MSTR), a company whose fortunes are tied to bitcoin, sank to hit a low of $104 during trading hours and today it closed a smidgen under $135:
The stock is still down 10% for the week.
What else? The share price of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) hit a low of $190 on Thursday and the stock closed at $208 today:
The volatility is just insane but nothing beat the volatility of bitcoin this week, just nuts (silver was a close second).
I monitor the price of bitcoin when it gyrates wildly because it gives me risk sentiment real time.
Why is all this happening now early in February?
I don't know, obviously the rotation out of tech into value plays a factor but the price action is just so severe especially in software shares which continue to sink on AI disruption worries:
That is one UGLY 5-year weekly chart and it's NOT a screaming buy here but personally, I think the hysteria over AI disrupting software stocks is way overdone and long-term investors need to buy Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), Snowflake (SNOW) and others at these levels (and manage risk as well).
I just think it's a crazy selloff in software as if every company in the world is going to use Anthropic for its software needs (yeah right!).
But the charts are UGLY, maybe this week was capitulation in software shares, we shall see.
And while everyone was rushing out of software, tech and hyper growth this week, they were rushing into consumer staples which benefited from all the craziness:
Bullish chart but these are staples like Coke and Pepsico going parabolic. I doubt this is going to last for long even if taples had a terrific week:
What else? Shares of private equity titans got slammed hard this week on worries over private credit's exposure to the software industry:
Next, Ed Yardeni, Yardeni Research, joins 'Power Lunch' to discuss Yardeni's thoughts on equity markets, where the opportunities are and much more.
Third, Richard Bernstein, Richard Bernstein Advisors CEO, joins 'The Exchange' to discuss the state of equity markets, which stocks are growing fast and treading cheaply and much more.
Fourth, Josh Belton, Gabelli Funds portfolio manager for growth equities, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the latest market trends, impact of AI on software, where AI is generating revenue today, and more.
Lastly, Brad Gerstner joined CNBC’s Halftime Report with Scott Wapner to address the software selloff.
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