By Anietie anii-bassey
Technology stocks staged a partial comeback Friday and bitcoin steadied after weeks of sharp declines, giving Wall Street a measure of relief following heavy losses earlier in the week.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.9%, positioning itself for only its second gain in eight sessions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 610 points, or 1.2%, by midmorning trading in New York, while the Nasdaq composite added 0.7%, lifted largely by renewed strength in semiconductor shares.
Chipmakers were among the day’s strongest performers. Nvidia rose 2.9%, trimming a weekly slide that had exceeded 10% coming into Friday. Broadcom advanced 3.4%, paring a weekly drop of more than 6%. Investors appeared encouraged by fresh signs that major corporations remain committed to pouring vast sums into artificial-intelligence infrastructure.
Amazon said late Thursday that it expects to invest roughly $200 billion this year in areas it described as “seminal opportunities,” including artificial intelligence, advanced chips, robotics and low-Earth-orbit satellites. The announcement followed a similar pledge from Alphabet earlier in the week, reinforcing the idea that spending on data centers and computing power remains a top priority for the tech sector.
Yet those ambitious investment plans have also stirred unease. Market participants continue to debate whether the enormous outlays will translate into higher profits down the road or eventually weigh on earnings. That uncertainty hit Amazon shares hard, sending them down 9.6% despite the broader market’s rebound.
The cautious mood left the S&P 500 hovering near what could become its worst weekly loss since November and its third decline in four weeks. Beyond worries about runaway AI spending by the market’s most influential companies, investors have also fretted that new artificial-intelligence tools could siphon customers from traditional software firms, adding pressure to the sector throughout the week.
In cryptocurrency markets, bitcoin showed signs of stabilizing after a prolonged sell-off that had erased more than half of its value from the record high set in October. The digital currency climbed back above $68,000 after briefly dipping near $60,000 late Thursday.
Precious metals, which had experienced dramatic swings of their own, also calmed somewhat. Gold gained 0.7% to $4,924.40 an ounce, while silver slid 3.2%.
Both metals had surged in recent months as investors sought havens from geopolitical uncertainty, concerns that U.S. stocks were overpriced and mounting government debt around the world. By January, however, the rallies had become so steep that some analysts warned they were unsustainable, and prices have since lost momentum.
The bounce in bitcoin helped lift stocks tied closely to the crypto ecosystem. Robinhood Markets jumped nearly 12%, the biggest gain in the S&P 500 for the day. Coinbase Global climbed 6.6%, and Strategy—the company known for amassing large bitcoin holdings—soared 15.1%.
Overseas markets were mixed. European indexes generally edged higher even as Stellantis, whose shares trade in Milan, plunged about 25% after the automaker said it would record a 22-billion-euro ($26-billion) charge while scaling back electric-vehicle production.
The company acknowledged that it had “over-estimated the pace of the energy transition” and said it was resetting its strategy to better reflect customer demand.
Stocks fell across much of Asia, though Japan’s Nikkei 225 bucked the trend with a 0.8% gain. Toyota Motor climbed 2% after announcing that Chief Executive Koji Sato will step down in April and be succeeded by Chief Financial Officer Kenta Kon.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were little changed. The yield on the 10-year note eased to 4.20% from 4.21% late Thursday, signaling that investors were still weighing the outlook for inflation, interest rates and economic growth even as equities attempted a tentative rebound.
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