US stocks jumped on Friday, set to rebound from a weeklong tech bruising as Wall Street reassessed worries about the impact of AI disruption and the risks of hefty Big Tech spending.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led the way higher, surging by about 2.1%, or more than 1,000 points, to within striking distance of the 50,000 milestone. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 1.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) added about 2%, as the indexes bounced back from sharp closing losses.

Wall Street is looking to end the week with a bounce back, as Big Tech CEOs and analysts brush aside concerns about the impact of new AI tools on legacy tech. But the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are still set for weekly losses, having slipped into negative territory for 2026.

The tentative risk-on tone extended beyond stocks, as bitcoin (BTC-USD) climbed steadily back to above $68,000, having touched a 16-month low overnight. But the biggest cryptocurrency is still on track for its worst weekly performance since 2022 after wiping out all of its post-Trump election gains this week.

Strategy (MSTR), one of the companies most affected by the crypto slump, revealed a loss for the quarter. The results initially weighed on its stock, but shares were up over 13% on Friday as bitcoin revived and Strategy's CEO played down concerns about debt-servicing risks.

Some tech gloom persisted as Amazon's (AMZN) shares tumbled 7%. In its earnings, the major cloud provider outlined plans for a massive 2026 jump in spending to at least $200 billion, even as its forecast for operating income fell short.

Elsewhere, Stellantis (STLA) warned it will take a charge of over 22 billion euros ($26 billion) in a plan to scale back its EV push. Shares in the Jeep maker tanked over 20% on Wall Street and in Milan (STLAM.MI), adding to a picture of EV malaise painted by this week's $60 billion wipeout for Chinese carmaker BYD (BYDDF, 1211.HK).

In commodities, silver (SI=F) whipsawed but broadly resumed its decline as Chinese selling continued ahead of a national holiday.

Looking ahead, the release of the closely watched January jobs report, originally scheduled for Friday, has been pushed to Wednesday next week. Fresh signs of trouble in the labor market emerged in recent days, as job openings sank to their lowest level since 2020 and layoff announcements surged.

Dow component Caterpillar (CAT) rose 6% on Friday, helping lift the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) over 900 points to within an arm's reach of the 50,000 mark.

Caterpillar stock is up 25% year to date, reflecting expectations that increased spending by Big Tech companies on AI and data center infrastructure will fuel Caterpillar's bull case. The stock hit an all-time intraday high above $720 per share.

In addition to making heavy machinery and construction equipment, Caterpillar sells energy and power systems that have been increasingly in demand for AI use cases. The company reported a record backlog of orders heading into 2026.

\\"In a few short years [Caterpillar has] become the ultimate story stock,\\" Barclays analysts wrote following the company's earnings report last week. \\"From AI/Power to infrastructure to now critical minerals, CAT touches several of the big themes that dominate the market.\\"

How much capex on artificial intelligence is too much capex?

As Wall Street reassesses its concerns about AI spending, my colleague Laura Bratton breaks down just how much Big Tech is shelling out for AI chips, servers, and data center infrastructure.

She writes that the four Big Tech \\"hyperscalers\\" — Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta (META) — are on track to spend upward of $650 billion on artificial intelligence investments this year. By company, here's what that looks like:

Amazon said on Thursday it would invest about $200 billion in capital expenditures in 2026.

Alphabet told investors on Wednesday that its capex would fall between $175 billion and $185 billion this year.

Meta told investors it would spend anywhere from $115 billion to $135 billion in 2026.

Microsoft's annual run rate for its 2026 fiscal year, which began in July, would put the company on pace for capital expenditures of $145 billion.

At the low end of that range, the four would spend about $635 billion, marking a roughly 67% spike from the companies’ $381 billion in expenditures in 2025. At the high end of their guidance, the group would spend around $665 billion, or a 74% jump from the previous year.

Read the full story here.

Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferré writes:

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) climbed to nearly $67,000 on Friday after a continued decline overnight sent prices as low as $61,000 following a 13% plunge on Thursday, the steepest one-day drop for the cryptocurrency since the FTX collapse in November 2022.

Even with Friday's recovery, bitcoin remains on pace for its worst week since 2022.

Selling this week cascaded into Thursday night's lows, making bitcoin's decline from its all-time high above $126,000 last October greater than 50%.

\\"From a sentiment perspective, comparisons across cycles are always imperfect, but anecdotally there is an outsized sense of fear and fatigue among crypto-native participants,” Sean Farrell, head of digital assets at Fundstrat, wrote in a note on Thursday night.

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance's Brooke DiPalma reports:

Consumer sentiment came in better than expected in February, reaching the highest level since August, but still remains down about 20% from last year's highs and near historically low levels as fears about inflation and the labor market weigh on Americans.

The University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment for February came in at 57.3, up 1.6 points from January but down 11.4% from last year's level of 64.7. This rise beat forecasts, with data from Bloomberg showing economists expected this report to come in lower than January at 55.

\\"While sentiment is currently the highest since August 2025, recent monthly increases have been small — well under the margin of error — and the overall level of sentiment remains very low from a historical perspective. Concerns about the erosion of personal finances from high prices and elevated risk of job loss continue to be widespread,\\" University of Michigan surveys of consumers director Joanne Hsu said in the release.

Read more here.

Nvidia (NVDA) stock spiked 4.6% in Friday morning trading as the chipmaker was set to benefit from the more than $600 billion in capital expenditures planned by the four Big Tech hyperscalers: Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Meta (META).

Amazon said on Thursday that it will spend around $200 billion in 2026.

On Wednesday, Alphabet said its capex would fall between $175 billion and $185 billion.

The previous week, Meta forecast it would spend anywhere from $115 billion to $135 billion. Microsoft hasn’t shared its full-year spending outlook, but if it continues to spend at the same rate as the first half of its fiscal year 2026 — which began in July of 2025 — the Azure cloud provider would see about $145 billion in capex.

At the low end of that range, the four would spend about $635 billion this year, marking a roughly 67% spike from the companies’ $381 billion expenditures in 2025. At the high end of their guidance, the group would spend around $665 billion, or a 74% jump from the previous year.

\\" It's all going to Nvidia,\\" DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria said in an interview with Yahoo Finance Friday morning of the capex figures.

He said that while Nvidia shares have come down about 4% over the past three months — as have fellow AI chip designers Broadcom (AVGO) and AMD (AMD), which dropped about 9% and 14% in that time frame, respectively — investors will likely start once again \\"giving credit to the companies that are capturing all the profits\\" from Big Tech's AI investments.

US stocks rose early Friday in a sign of cautious optimism for rebound after a week-long tech rout.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) added roughly 0.2%, recovering from early premarket declines. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) also climbed 0.8% after sharp losses for stocks on Thursday.

Hims & Hers Health (HIMS) and Novo Nordisk (NVO) stocks saw a reversal of fortunes on Friday morning after the FDA announced a crackdown on GLP-1 copycat drugs amid fierce competition in the weight-loss drug market.

On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Marty Makary said on X that the agency will take \\"swift action against companies mass-marketing illegal copycat drugs.\\"

The move came just after Hims & Hers announced it would launch a compounded weight-loss pill that would rival Novo Nordisk's Wegovy medicine for $49 to $99. Compounded drugs are customized medicines that are not FDA-approved and are sometimes considered \\"dupes\\" of branded medicines.

Novo Nordisk's stock dived following the news, and the company immediately threatened legal action, saying in a statement, \\"Novo Nordisk will take legal and regulatory action to protect patients, our intellectual property and the integrity of the US gold-standard drug approval framework.\\"

After the FDA seemed to weigh in on the matter, shares of Hims & Hers Health (HIMS) fell around 7%, while Novo Nordisk (NVO) stock jumped 7%.

Molina Healthcare (MOH) stock fell 28% before the bell on Friday after forecasting 2026 profit below analysts' expectations. The US health insurer said medical costs have risen across its government-backed plans.

Doximity (DOCS) stock sank 30% during premarket hours today after lowering its full-year sales outlook.

Coty (COTY) stock slumped 13% before the bell on Friday. The beauty brand withdraw its fiscal year guidance on Friday.

Strategy (MSTR) stock jumped 6% on Friday morning, defying the ongoing decline in bitcoin and the stock's 17% drop on Thursday.

On Thursday afternoon, the company reported that it held 713,502 bitcoins with an average purchase price of $76,052, roughly 20% more than what bitcoin is trading for. Strategy reported operating losses of $17.4 billion, compared to $1 billion in the same period in 2024.

With bitcoin's price of $66,227 on Friday, the company is still underwater on its investment amid a crypto sell-off. But Strategy's Michael Saylor is urging the crypto faithful to stay strong, echoing their mantra and battle cry: \\"HODL.\\"

Yahoo Finance's Hamza Shaban writes in today's Morning Brief how Strategy's problems have been years in the making:

In this moment of great stress, bitcoin is not acting like a next-gen safe haven. Gold is out-hustling crypto. And whatever excitement it once drew from the tech world and from tech-minded investors is being redirected to the AI trade, which is itself acting like a wrecking ball to other software assets.

Saylor's strategy worked when prices were rising. When they weren't, he had the cushion to struggle through it. But the drawdown this week is so significant because so many crypto critiques are on display. It doesn't do the things its proponents claim, the numbers are going in the wrong direction, and for those who came late, the Lamborghinis and moon landings never arrived.

Crypto skeptics shouldn't take this all as an \\"I told you so\\" moment. Saylor hasn't capitulated. Even 50% losses are probably not close to his escape level. He and other evangelists may not even have one.

But this crypto winter is different, and not because bitcoin is dead. It's because we're stuck with it.

Read more here.

Jeep maker Stellantis (STLA, STLAM.MI) warned on Friday that it will book a €22.2 billion ($26 billion) charge as it scales back its EV push.

Shares plummeted over 20% in premarket on Wall Street and in Milan, where trading was halted briefly. They plunged as much as 24% in Italy, the biggest drop on record for the Peugeot and Fiat automaker, to erase over €5 billion off its market cap.

Bloomberg reports:

The writedowns, which include some €6.5 billion in cash payments mainly to compensate suppliers, mirror moves by peers including Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. The maker of Jeep SUVs and Fiat cars is canceling several models and projects as it struggles with high costs and market share losses in Europe and the US.

The moves “largely reflect the cost of over-estimating the pace of the energy transition,” Chief Executive Officer Antonio Filosa said in a statement that appeared to pin blame on his predecessor Carlos Tavares. Filosa said the reset shows “the impact of previous poor operational execution, the effects of which are being progressively addressed by our new team.”

Filosa, who took over in June, is trying to overhaul the carmaker to regain market share while walking back EV ambitions and mitigating the rising cost of tariffs. Friday’s announcement is meant to help the company move beyond a tumultuous period under Tavares, who had presided over a profit and sales plunge in Europe and the US.

Reddit (RDDT) stock jumped 7% before the bell on Friday after posting better-than-expected fourth quarter results and issuing positive guidance, helped by AI tools to bring more marketers to the platform.

Investing.com reports:

Reddit also announced its first share repurchase programme of up to $1 billion. The company reported adjusted earnings of $1.24 a share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.93. Revenue jumped 70% year over year to $726 million, above expectations of about $667 million, driven by robust advertiser demand and rising user engagement.

Reddit forecast first-quarter 2026 revenue of $595 million to $605 million, topping Wall Street estimates of roughly $577 million. It also projected adjusted EBITDA of $210 million to $220 million, ahead of consensus forecasts, pointing to improving profitability alongside strong top-line growth.

Reddit allows ads to be placed directly within subreddit discussion threads, enabling brands to reach highly engaged and niche communities.

Read more here.

Reuters reports:

Roblox (RBLX) forecast fiscal 2026 bookings above Wall Street expectations on Thursday, signaling another year of strong growth in ​player spending and engagement as the videogame platform aggressively looks to ‌capture 10% of the global gaming market.

Shares of the company jumped around 11% in premarket hours on Friday.

Amid strong ‌competition for user attention and dollars, Roblox has pursued several avenues, including advertising and e-commerce, to retain and grow its large user base. Its average daily active users grew 69% year-over-year to 144 million in the fourth quarter.

The company said margins ⁠will be flat to slightly ‌down this year due to investments in safety initiatives, upgrading server infrastructure to accommodate its growing platform and higher payouts to ‍spur the developer community.

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

Silver (SI=F) lurched between losses and gains, dropping nearly 10% before snapping back, as a lack of liquidity led to wild swings in a market struggling to find a floor.

Spot silver rose as much as 3.5%, after tumbling toward $64 an ounce in early trading. That followed a 20% decline in the previous session that wiped out all of the metal’s gains from a spectacular rally last month. Gold also reversed course to advance on Friday.

Silver has always been subject to more violent price swings than gold, due to its smaller market size and relative lack of liquidity. But recent moves, the most volatile since 1980, have stood out for their scale and speed, amplified by speculative momentum and thinner over-the-counter trading. The white metal has lost about 40% since hitting an all-time peak on Jan. 29.

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

Retail investors who piled into the Trump administration’s promised crypto paradise via Wall Street-approved funds are now learning an expensive lesson in market gravity.

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and a slew of newly minted altcoin exchange-traded funds have crashed, erasing all gains made since just before Donald Trump retook the White House and wiping out the speculative premium that had defined the era’s digital-asset boom.

Despite the president’s pledge to make America the world’s crypto capital, Bitcoin has plunged 50% from its peak to trade around $63,000. Cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin have fared even worse, with a gauge tracking 50 smaller tokens tumbling 67% from a recent peak in October. Overall, the market has shed at least $700 billion in value over the past week.

The carnage marks a swift reversal for an asset class Trump vowed to elevate into a national infrastructure priority. Regulators, spurred by the White House’s pro-digital-asset mandate, cleared the path for a flood of exchange-traded products. Money managers moved quickly to capitalize, rolling out funds tied not only to blue-chip tokens but also to riskier ones, packaging them into easily tradable ETFs that spanned speculative strategies, thematic bets and income-focused wrappers.

Read more here.