Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on Jan. 21, 2026 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
U.S. equities were mixed on Friday, as the Nasdaq Composite extended its gains amid easing geopolitical fears and the Dow Jones Industrial Average underperformed.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 0.28% and settled at 23,501.24, while the blue-chip Dow lost 285.30 points, or 0.58%, closing at 49,098.71. A nearly 4% slide in Goldman Sachs weighed on the 30-stock index. The broad market S&P 500 eked out a marginal gain of 0.03% to end at 6,915.61.
Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices were among those supporting the Nasdaq and the S&P 500, climbing 1.5% and more than 2%, respectively. The moves come as people familiar with the matter told CNBC that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is planning to visit China in the coming days. Other tech names like Microsoft saw a boost as well.
Intel shares, in contrast, tumbled around 17% after the chipmaker reported a disappointing first-quarter outlook.
The three major averages rallied for a second session on Thursday as investors were appeased by news of easing trade tensions and geopolitical risk.
The indexes began their rebound on Wednesday after President Donald Trump called off his threatened tariffs on the imports of eight European nations — which were set to start Feb.1 — and announced that he and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte reached a “framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland.” The tariff threat briefly spurred a flight from U.S. assets as investors turned to the “sell America” trade at the start of the holiday-shortened trading week.
Trump had also told CNBC Wednesday that “we have a concept of a deal” with the Arctic island.
“Investors this week welcomed a term that kind of started around Liberation Day or shortly thereafter — the ‘TACO’ trade,'” said Scott Ellis, managing director, corporate credit at Penn Mutual Asset Management. “Maybe investors will look to that in the future as Trump kind of walks back and this administration walks back some of the rhetoric in order to get deals done.”
To be sure, Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said on Thursday he doesn’t know what’s in the “framework” deal that Trump announced, stressing that any such deal must respect Greenland’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
While the combined gains on Wednesday and Thursday had erased the Dow’s losses from earlier in the week, Friday’s move put it back in the red. The 30-stock Dow fell 0.5% on the week. The S&P 500 lost about 0.4%, while the Nasdaq slipped less than 0.1% in the period — both posted back-to-back losing weeks.
