Dow Races Back Above 50,000 as Cisco Gives the Market a Fresh Jolt

The Wall Street, CNBC, Reuters, AP, and Investor’s Business Daily contributed to this report.

Wall Street had another strong day Thursday, and the Dow got the headline bragging rights back.

The 30-stock index jumped 446 points, or 0.9%, pushing it back above 50,000. The S&P 500 climbed 1%, and the Nasdaq added 1.1%, as investors kept piling into tech and chewing over a big meeting between US and Chinese leaders.

Cisco was the day’s star. Shares surged 14% after the company posted better-than-expected quarterly results, raised guidance and said it will cut nearly 4,000 jobs. That gave the Dow a solid boost all by itself.

Nvidia helped too, rising more than 4% after a Reuters report said the US has cleared about 10 Chinese firms to buy its H200 chip. No shipments have gone out yet, but traders took the news as another sign that the chip trade still has room to run.

The broader market has been leaning hard on tech for a while now. Cisco, Nvidia and Amazon have all done heavy lifting lately, and the index’s rebound has kept going even with oil prices still elevated and inflation worries hanging over everything.

There was also fresh talk out of the Trump-Xi summit, where Iran and the Strait of Hormuz were reportedly on the agenda. A White House official said the two sides agreed the waterway has to stay open, which matters because the conflict has kept tanker traffic snarled and crude prices high.

Even with that backdrop, investors are still finding reasons to buy. Earnings season has been strong enough to keep the rally alive, and a few companies outside the tech world are also surprising people.

StubHub, Viking Holdings and Yeti all jumped after posting better-than-expected results, a sign that consumers are still spending on concerts, cruises and pricey drinkware even while surveys keep showing anxiety about the economy.

That said, the macro picture is still messy. Retail spending was weaker than expected last month, and more people filed for unemployment benefits. Not disastrous. Just enough to remind everyone that this rally is happening with a lot of noise in the background.

For now, though, the market does not seem to care much. Cisco handed the Dow a clean push over 50,000 again, and traders kept right on buying.