Dow Closes Above 50K for the First Time

The stock market roared back on Friday as the Dow broke 50,000 for the first time in its history, per the AP. The milestone came late in the afternoon, and the index closed above the threshold.

• The Dow rose 1,206 points, or 2.4%, to 50,115.
• The benchmark S&P 500 rose 133 points, or 1.9%, to 6,932, its best day since May.
• The tech-centric Nasdaq rose 490 points, or 2.1%, to 23,031.

• Chip companies helped drive the widespread rally, and Nvidia jumped 7.3% to trim its loss for the week, which came into the day at just over 10%. Broadcom climbed 7.2% and fully erased its drop for the week.
• They were the two strongest forces lifting the S&P 500, and they benefited from hopes for continued spending by customers diving into artificial-intelligence technology. Amazon, for example, said late Thursday it expects to spend about $200 billion on investments this year to take advantage of "seminal opportunities like AI, chips, robotics, and low earth orbit satellites."
• The strong day caps a rough week, during which concerns about AI potentially stealing customers away from software companies also hurt the market. The hits for software stocks accelerated after AI firm Anthropic released free tools to automate things like legal services.
• Bitcoin, meanwhile, steadied following a weekslong plunge that had sent it more than halfway below its record price set in October. It climbed back above $70,000 after briefly dropping close to $60,000 late Thursday.

(This story was updated to reflect the closing numbers.)