Dow hits 50,000 for first time

The Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 50,000 points for the first time on Friday as investors rallied in response to a rout in tech stocks earlier in the week.

The closely watched index rose above 50,000 for the first time after 2 p.m. during Friday's trading session after rising more than 1,000 points on the day, which represents a gain of more than 2.2%.

Chip stocks surged on expectations they would benefit from increased spending on artificial intelligence (AI) data centers by Amazon and Google parent company Alphabet.