Stocks hit historic milestone as Dow crosses 50,000 points for first time ever

By John Towfighi, CNN

New York (CNN) — The Dow just hit 50,000 points for the first time ever.

The blue-chip index on Friday surged 1,097 points, or 2.24%, and climbed above 50,000 points during trading. It’s the first time the 129-year-old index has crossed the historic 50,000-point milestone.

The Dow’s ascent is emblematic of the stock market’s persistent rise despite recent tumultuous geopolitical events.

Stocks in the United States — and across the globe — have climbed higher this year despite uncertainty about turmoil in Iran, tensions between Washington and Brussels over Greenland and the US’ capture of Nicholas Maduro.

Stock market investors are also assessing the health of the artificial intelligence boom and digesting President Donald Trump’s pick of Kevin Warsh to chair the Federal Reserve.

Wall Street rallied sharply Friday, rebounding after a three-day rout in technology and software stocks. The broader S&P 500 on Friday rose 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 1.9%.

Rally broadens out

The US stock market is in the fourth year of a bull market.

The Dow has pushed higher as the rally has broadened out, with investors scooping up more than just high-flying tech stocks. The blue-chip index is outpacing the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 this year as investors rotate into sectors like industrials and financials.

The Dow is more focused on sectors like financials and industrials, and less exposed to the tech sector, which accounts for a larger share of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite’s market value.

Goldman Sachs (GS) and Caterpillar (CAT), the two stocks with the most influence over the price-weighted Dow, rose 4.2% and 6.4% Friday, respectively. Caterpillar hit a record high.

“The positives of the Dow getting to that new milestone, is it’s showing we’re seeing a broadening in the market,” said Matt Dmytryszyn, chief investment officer at Composition Wealth. “It’s not just tech stocks and AI. We’re seeing more broader financial and industrial and healthcare companies starting to become more broadly bought and recognized in the market.”

The Dow hitting 50,000 for the first time reflects Wall Street’s optimism about the US economy and is just another record now broken on the market’s multi-year bull run. Still, “fear” was the sentiment driving markets on Friday, according to CNN’s Fear and Greed Index.

“Fundamentals remain solidly in place, meaning improving earnings growth and resilient consumer spending,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategy director at US Bank Asset Management.

On paper, the economy is doing fine. Wall Street is hopeful for interest rate cuts from the Fed later this year.

Underneath the hood, however, the picture is less rosy. Consumer spending is being driven by wealthier households who tend have money in stocks and have seen their investments rise in value, while people who rely on paychecks for their income are feeling strained by a lack of affordability.

Meanwhile, some on Wall Street continue to warn of complacency in financial markets amid affronts to the Fed’s independence, persistent nerves about a bubble and increasingly fraught geopolitics.

“The US economy has remained resilient,” Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said in a statement on January 13 as the bank reported fourth-quarter earnings results.

“Consumers continue to spend, and businesses generally remain healthy,” Dimon said. “However, as usual, we remain vigilant, and markets seem to underappreciate the potential hazards — including from complex geopolitical conditions, the risk of sticky inflation and elevated asset prices.”

Long road to 50,000

The Dow was established in 1896 by journalists Charles Dow and Edward Jones. The index initially covered 12 industrial stocks, including General Electric, National Lead and the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company.

The Dow is older than the S&P 500, which was established in 1957 (though precursors had existed since 1928) and the Nasdaq Composite, which was established in 1971.

The Dow in 1928 expanded from 12 stocks to 30 stocks — and the Dow has remained a 30-stock index since. Different companies have rotated in and out of the Dow overtime, reflecting the changing and developing American economy.

The Dow officially closed above 1,000 points for the first time on November 14, 1972.

Here’s a look back at other significant milestones on the road to 50,000:

Dow 10,000: March 29, 1999.

Dow 15,000: May 7, 2013.

Dow 20,000: January 25, 2017.

Dow 30,000: Nov. 24, 2020.

The Dow clinched 40,000 points in May 2024 before hitting 45,000 on December 4 of that year.

As President Donald Trump’s announcement of his widespread tariff regime rocked global markets in April 2025, the index briefly tumbled below 37,000 points — down roughly 18% from its peak above 45,000 in December 2024.

But the Dow rebounded as Trump walked back his most severe tariff proposals. The blue-chip index reclaimed 45,000 in August 2025 before eclipsing 46,000, 47,000 and 48,000 in quick succession across the following months.

The Dow pushed above 49,000 for the first time ever on January 6 before surpassing 50,000 on Friday.

“50k is an incredible milestone, especially considering we are getting close in a couple of months to the anniversary of the tariff tantrum period where the Dow traded into 36,000, so it has been quite the recovery and trend,” said Ken Mahoney, president and CEO at Mahoney Asset Management.

The Dow has experienced various bull and bear markets, from the roaring 1920s to the Great Depression, the exuberance of the dot-com bubble in the 1990s to crash of the early 2000s, and the slides and rebounds of the financial crisis of 2008 and the Covid-19 pandemic in the early 2020s.

The Dow is only 30 companies and is price-weighted. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq track hundreds of companies and are market value-weighted. The Dow’s history is what makes the index unique, according to Dmytryszyn at Composition Wealth.

“I grew up listening to the TV and radio, and you hear what the Dow is doing,” he said. “It just has some of that historical context in it, that tradition to it.”

What Dow 50k means for you

50,000 is just another round number for the stock index. But the milestone signifies a strong start to 2026. The S&P 500, which covers a broader range of companies, hit a record high in late January.

Retirement plans like 401(k)s are often invested in funds that track benchmark US stock indexes like the S&P 500 or the Dow. As the market climbs higher, Americans’ retirement savings might look a little more plush than usual.

Doug Beath, global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said he thinks investors will continue to look through “the noise of negative headlines” and instead “focus on positive forces we see propelling growth through 2026: tax cuts, deregulation and falling short-term interest rates.”

Still, Beath said he would not be surprised if markets hit patches of volatility as companies continue to report fourth-quarter earnings and “the threat of escalating geopolitical tensions remains.”

“We will treat pullbacks as opportunities to rebalance funds toward favored sectors that benefit from the ancillary trends related to AI with more attractive valuations: financials, utilities and industrials,” Beath said.

Meanwhile, as stocks continue a bull run that has eclipsed dozens of record highs, some investors are also cautioning that there might not be as much room for US stocks to run this year. International stocks outperformed US stocks in 2025 for the first time in years, and are ahead of US markets so far this year.

Record highs in the stock market are an opportunity to review your savings portfolio and ensure it is well-diversified to match your risk tolerance and your life goals.

“Stocks are well-positioned for further gains this year, but with valuations already reflecting optimistic estimates of AI-driven productivity growth and cost savings, the market may have set a fairly high bar for itself,” Daniel Skelly, head of Morgan Stanley’s wealth management market research and strategy team, said in a note.

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