Dow closes above 50,000 for first time
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 50,000 points for the first time on Friday as stocks rallied in response to a rout in tech shares earlier in the week.
The closely watched index rose above 50,000 for the first time after 2 p.m. during Friday's trading session, advancing 1,206.95 points, or 2.47%, to close at 50,115.67.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite also closed in the green, up 1.97% and 2.18%, respectively.
President Donald Trump celebrated the news in a Truth Social post on Friday afternoon.
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"The Dow Jones Industrial Average just hit 50,000 for the first time in History. CONGRATULATIONS AMERICA!" Trump wrote.
The president said in a separate post, "The ‘Experts’ said that if I hit 50,000 on the Dow by the end of my Term, I would have done a great job, but I hit 50,000 today, three years ahead of schedule — Remember that for the Midterms, because the Democrats will CRASH the Economy!"
Chip stocks surged on expectations they would benefit from increased spending on artificial intelligence (AI) data centers by Amazon and Google parent company Alphabet.
Shares in Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom all rose by more than 7%. Amazon's stock fell nearly 7% after announcing it planned to ramp up capital expenditures by more than 50% this year amid the AI race after a similar announcement by Alphabet Wednesday.
Friday's rallies in the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq followed three consecutive days of losses amid worries about AI.
"Market sentiment improved after today’s positive report out of the University of Michigan," said Jeffrey Roach, LPL Financial chief economist. "Median 1-year inflation expectations hit the lowest since January 2025, providing some comfort for investors eager to see improving inflation metrics."
Several software companies saw stock declines amid investors' concerns that competition in the AI space could hurt their margins as well as questions about whether valuations have become excessive amid the AI boom.
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"This trade has been volatile, and there have been selloffs at times, but I think there's enough evidence that there's real demand for AI products, real promise with what they can do and a necessity of a lot of spending to get there," said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird.
"So, when there's this kind of a sell-off, I think there's a floor where there's going to be a certain set of investors that steps in and starts buying these names."
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Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes rose, led by the information technology index's gain of more than 3.7% and a nearly 2.7% gain by the index for industrials.
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Reuters contributed to this report.