Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., Feb. 5, 2026.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Stocks rose on Friday, positioning the market for a positive end to a volatile week, as investors moved back into technology stocks after several days of assessing the threat artificial intelligence poses to the software industry.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 963 points, or 2%. The S&P 500 added 1.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite traded up 1.6%. With those moves, the S&P 500 climbed back into the green for 2026, but the broad market index is still pacing for a negative week, as is the tech-heavy Nasdaq. The S&P 500 has slid 0.5%, while the Nasdaq is down more than 2% on the week. The 30-stock Dow, meanwhile, is sitting up 2% week to date.
A rebound in various tech names bolstered the broader market. Nvidia and Microsoft were two of the key winners, with the former increasing by 6% and the latter rising 1% — a meaningful recovery from the close-to-double-digit percentage drops that both names saw this week.
Amazon was the outlier among the group, as shares sank 8% 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.
In addition to tech, investors bought 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 6% and 3%, respectively.
Bitcoin also recouped some losses Friday, adding 9% to reach back above $69,000 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 still lost 17% this week, however.
That action followed a rough day on Wall Street, with the market once again bogged down by technology stocks. Software stocks continued sliding Thursday, with the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) losing another 5%. The software sector fund reversed course Friday, rising 1%, but its 10% drop this week still puts it on pace for its biggest weekly decline since 2008.
“The reassessment of AI sentiment does not materially alter our constructive view on the fundamentals of the Big Tech companies at the center of the AI capex cycle,” said Barclays equity strategist Venu Krishna. “Their valuations remain compelling, and we continue to see their earnings profiles as resilient even as the market temporarily steps back from AI‑driven narratives.”
The stock market slid alongside other asset classes, signaling a broader risk-off sentiment among traders.
The sell-off on silver — a volatile trade that’s become popular among retail investors recently — resumed on Thursday. On Friday, silver futures prices extended their losses, while spot silver jumped.
