Dow Extends Weekly Gains Today as Chip Stocks Rally and SK Hynix's Blockbuster IPO Debuts on Wall Street

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks extended their weekly gains Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbing to 52,616.63, up 129.22 points, or 0.25 percent, as renewed strength in semiconductor stocks and easing oil prices helped markets shrug off continued tension between the United States and Iran.

The gains capped a volatile but ultimately resilient week for equities. The Dow rose 139.02 points, or 0.27 percent, Thursday to close at 52,487.41, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.30 percent to 26,206.89 and the S&P 500 climbed 0.81 percent to 7,543.64, according to data compiled by CNBC. Those gains came even as the U.S. launched fresh airstrikes against Iran early Thursday and Tehran responded by targeting Gulf countries, an exchange of fire that followed President Donald Trump's declaration that a fragile ceasefire between the two countries had effectively collapsed.

Investors appeared to look past the renewed hostilities, with markets focusing instead on signs that commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz had continued largely uninterrupted despite the exchange of strikes. According to Trading Economics, oil prices and bond yields eased Thursday amid evidence that laden tankers continued crossing the strait, helping calm investor nerves and supporting a broad rally across the financial sector, with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and American Express each adding roughly 2 to 3 percent during the session. Macquarie Group global energy strategist Vikas Dwivedi offered a similar assessment in a research note cited by TheStreet, saying, "We expect the renewed tension in the Middle East between the U.S. and Iran to be relatively short-lived because both countries are constrained by practical economic and political realities," while cautioning investors against chasing the rally given that underlying market fundamentals could still act as a headwind.

Semiconductor stocks led much of the week's advance. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF climbed 2.5 percent Thursday, powered by a 4.5 to 7 percent gain in Micron Technology shares after the company announced plans to invest up to $3 billion to strengthen U.S. chip manufacturing infrastructure. SanDisk jumped 7.6 percent the same day, while Applied Materials rose 3.2 percent. Optical-communication and networking chip names also participated in the rally, with Marvell Technology, Corning, Coherent and Lumentum all posting notable gains as investor demand for AI-linked communications hardware remained strong.

Much of Friday's continued momentum was tied to the market debut of SK Hynix's American depositary shares, a closely watched offering given the South Korean company's position as the world's second-largest memory chipmaker. According to Bloomberg, the $26.5 billion U.S. share offering was more than seven times oversubscribed, reflecting strong investor appetite for direct exposure to the ongoing AI-driven memory chip boom. South Korea's KOSPI index, often viewed as a bellwether for global AI investment sentiment, jumped 4 percent Friday on the back of the listing, putting the index on pace for its best week in more than a year even as it trimmed a broader weekly decline tied to earlier volatility in the sector.

Not every corner of the market participated equally in the week's gains. Data-analytics company Palantir extended a difficult stretch, falling roughly 3 to 4 percent Thursday and pushing its year-to-date decline to around 29 percent, as some investors continued to express caution about elevated valuations across parts of the AI trade. Software company Salesforce dropped 4 percent after KeyBanc downgraded the stock to sector weight from overweight, citing weak feedback on the company's AgentForce autonomous AI platform, while IBM fell roughly 2.4 to 4 percent following updates to its own agentic software development tools. Cybersecurity and cloud firm CrowdStrike and enterprise software names broadly lagged the rally in chip-related stocks throughout the week.

Broadcom shares jumped 5 percent earlier in the week after the company signed a $30 billion chip deal with Apple, under which Broadcom will design and produce technology for future Apple products, adding to the broader wave of AI infrastructure-related corporate announcements shaping market sentiment. Meta Platforms also rebounded from early losses to close roughly 2 percent higher Thursday after announcing plans to begin production of its own custom AI chip by September, a move that positions the company alongside other major technology firms pursuing greater independence from third-party chip suppliers.

Economic data released during the week added some additional context for investors. The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes fell 2.4 percent in June from May, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.9 million units, missing economists' expectations for a modest increase. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said continued job gains should help support the housing market going forward, while cautioning that stalled inventory growth could continue to limit progress on affordability. Separately, weekly jobless claims data released Thursday came in relatively subdued, offering some reassurance about the health of the broader labor market even amid the week's geopolitical volatility.

Overseas markets largely mirrored the recovery seen on Wall Street. Europe's pan-continental Stoxx 600 index closed up 0.8 percent Thursday, with Italy's FTSE MIB gaining 1.1 percent, Germany's DAX rising 0.83 percent, and France's CAC 40 adding 0.9 percent, though Britain's FTSE 100 slipped 0.2 percent. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 closed 1.4 percent higher Thursday, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index initially fell 0.7 percent before climbing 1.2 percent Friday, on pace for its best week in more than a year alongside the broader rally in AI-linked names across the region.

Volatility measures eased somewhat as the week progressed. The Cboe Volatility Index, Wall Street's primary gauge of expected market turbulence, briefly climbed above 18 earlier in the week before settling below 17, according to Schwab's market commentary, never approaching the level near 20 that typically signals significantly elevated investor uncertainty.

With SK Hynix's listing now complete and chip stocks continuing to lead the broader market's recovery from late-June weakness, investors head into the coming week watching closely for further developments in the Middle East alongside a steady stream of second-quarter corporate earnings reports, including results from Delta Air Lines, as markets continue weighing the durability of the AI investment cycle against ongoing questions about valuations and ongoing geopolitical risk.