Dow leads S&P 500, Nasdaq higher as Wall Street rebounds from AI tech rout
U.S. stocks rose on Friday, poised to rebound after a week-long tech beatdown, as Wall Street reassessed concerns about the impact of AI disruption and the risks of higher Big Tech spending.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led the rise, gaining over 1.5%, or over 700 points. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 1%, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose about 0.9% as the indexes began trailing sharp closing losses.
Wall Street plans to end the week on a rebound as Big Tech CEOs and analysts brush aside concerns about the impact of new AI tools on older technologies. But the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are still poised for weekly losses after sliding into negative territory for 2026.
The temporary risk-on tone has extended beyond equities as Bitcoin (BTC-USD) climbed steadily above $68,000, hitting a 16-month low overnight. But the largest cryptocurrency is still on track for its worst weekly performance since 2022 after Trump erased all his post-election gains this week.
Strategy (MSTR), one of the companies most affected by the cryptocurrency collapse, announced a loss for the quarter. The results initially weighed on the stock, but shares rose more than 13% on Friday as Bitcoin rebounded and Strategy’s CEO downplayed concerns about debt default risks.
Some pessimism remained in tech, with shares of Amazon (AMZN) losing 9%. In its earnings call, the leading cloud provider outlined plans for a massive increase in spending to at least $200 billion in 2026, although operating revenue fell short of forecasts.
Elsewhere Stellantis (STLA) warned It will charge over 22 billion euros ($26 billion) in a plan to reduce EV thrust. The Jeep maker’s shares tumbled more than 20% on Wall Street and Milan (STLAM.MI), adding to the picture of EV malaise painted by the $60 billion demise of Chinese automaker BYD (BYDDF, 1211.HK) this week.
In commodities, silver (SI=F) was hit hard but remained generally lower as selling continued in China ahead of the national holiday.
Looking ahead, the release of the closely watched January employment report, originally scheduled for Friday, Postponed to Wednesday next week. New signs of problems in the labor market have emerged in recent days, as job openings have fallen to their lowest level since 2020 and layoff announcements have increased.
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