Here are 3 major moments that drove the stock market last week

CNBC Finance

4 min read

A massive market snapback on Friday couldn't erase all of the week's damage. After several days of selling, the tech sector roared back, with the Nasdaq gaining over 2% on Friday. Chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom led the way, with gains of 7.8% and 7.2%, respectively. The broad-based S & P 500 rose nearly 2% in a session. Despite the late-week rally, both indexes posted declines for the week. The Nasdaq lost 1.8%, while the S & P 500 lost 0.1%. The story was different for the Dow , which benefited from the rotation out of growth names in software and tech and into value areas like financials and industrials. The 30-stock benchmark rose more than 1,200 points on Friday, hitting an all-time high close of 50,115. The Dow finished up 2.5% for the week. .IXIC .SPX,.DJI mountain 2026-02-02 Nasdaq, S & P 500, Dow since Feb. 2 "It's a mighty Dow rally," Jim Cramer said at Friday's Morning Meeting, adding that "we've got a lot of mighty Dow [in the portfolio] so I'm feeling pretty good about it." With the exception of Amazon and Verizon, each stock in the average was up on Friday. Of the Trust portfolio's 34 holdings, 11 are Dow names, including Apple , Home Depot , Microsoft , and Honeywell . We'll see if Friday's rally has legs come Monday. Until then, here are three significant moments that drove the market last week. 1. Everybody cared about capex Wall Street views the hyperscalers as a check on the AI trade, given their massive investments in the nascent technology. Alphabet and Amazon both announced massive increases in capital expenditures for the year to build their data centers and AI offerings. But investors reacted differently to the news. The Google parent reported a fantastic fourth-quarter late Wednesday and announced that its 2026 spending could be more than double that of the previous year. Investors took the eye-popping increase in stride. Although shares fell 0.5% Thursday, it was still much better than the Nasdaq's 1.5% loss that day. Amazon stock tumbled 5.5% on Friday after its results on Thursday evening missed management's current-quarter profit forecast. Still, it was a solid quarter overallÂ for the cloud computing and e-commerce giant. 2. Software stocks took a beating â and took the rest of tech down too Software stocks got crushed early this week amid fears that AI will eat into the market share of traditional enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. While the selling has been going on for months, it accelerated on Tuesday after Anthropic released a new automation tool for legal work. As portfolio director Jeff Marks pointed out , AI is a threat to the sector; however, this week's sell-off brought down both companies directly in the line of fire and those with staying power, including best-of-breed cybersecurity companies. AI should actually be a tailwind to these businesses. We used the decline in CrowdStrike 's stock price to add to our position. After all, demand for CrowdStrike's cybersecurity offerings has never been stronger. 3. The big rotation led to some stock trimming The lack of love for tech meant money moving into other, often overlooked, areas of the market. It also gave us the opportunity to pocket some gains and raise cash. For example, we trimmed two Dow stocks that secured double-digit gains in 2026: Home Depot and Honeywell. We also booked big gains on DuPont on Thursday for similar reasons. Shares jumped over 6% last week as capital rotated into value, industry economy names like this one. For the year, DuPont shares have rallied over 16%.Â We even got a chance to sell into strength one of our laggard stocks: Texas Roadhouse . On Monday, we trimmed some of the restaurant stock for the second time in 2026, after it gained 15% year to date. It's not due to a slowdown in the company's business, but rather concerns around when beef inflation will finally subside. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

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Here are 3 major moments that drove the stock market last week

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