Dow Jones Industrial Average climbs to fresh record on Friday

• The Dow Jones finds room to move higher on thin Friday.
• November set to close as the Dow Jones' best-performing month of the year.
• Another data-laden NFP week looms ahead over the horizon.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) explored territory north of the 45,000 handle for the second time this week. With little on the data docket and Friday's Post-Thanksgiving holiday trading hours cut short, investors scrambled to push equities into record territory before closing up shop for the weekend. 

Tech stocks, specifically chipmakers, are helping to bolster stock indexes after it was revealed that additional restrictions on the sale of semiconductor goods to China being considered by the Biden administration may not be as stiff as many investors had originally feared. Lacking any other fundamental reasons to sell short, traders are bidding stocks higher for the day as markets continue to brush off renewed threats of wide-reaching tariffs set to be imposed by incoming President-elect Donald Trump in January.

Next week will see a fresh round of employment and labor figures that will draw eyes from all corners of the market. This will culminate in another print of monthly Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) numbers next Friday. 

Dow Jones news

Equities broadly found higher ground on holiday-shortened Friday, with two-thirds of the Dow Jones printing in the green from the day's opening bids at the closing bell. Nvidia (NVDA) rallied over 2%, closing north of $138 per share as the chipmaker recovers from a recent downturn. Investors soured on NVDA after it was revealed that the major tech sector player, which is expected to see revenues soar by another 100% YoY in 2025, may see extended gross inflows shrink to a paltry 50% YoY in 2026. NVDA has fallen over 7% from its all-time high of $148.88 set earlier this month, but still up over 1,000% from 2022's lows near $12.

Dow Jones price forecast

The DJIA continues to find higher ground, vexing traders looking to amass short positions as price action shows little disregard for any precise definition of overbought conditions. The Dow Jones is up nearly 20% YTD, and has closed in the green for all but two of the last 11 consecutive months.

Traders looking to get into an exhaustion play will be looking for an eventual decline to the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) rising through 43,000, but a long-running pattern of bouncing from the key moving average means they should just get out of the way and follow the crowd into a fresh leg higher.

Dow Jones daily chart