{"id":59160,"date":"2026-02-26T08:09:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T12:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/dowjonestodaydow-jones-nears-50000-milestone-as-gdp-growth-fuels-bullish-sentiment\/59160\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T08:09:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T12:09:42","slug":"dowjonestodaydow-jones-nears-50000-milestone-as-gdp-growth-fuels-bullish-sentiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/dowjonestodaydow-jones-nears-50000-milestone-as-gdp-growth-fuels-bullish-sentiment\/59160\/","title":{"rendered":"[DowJonesToday]Dow Jones Nears 50,000 Milestone as GDP Growth Fuels Bullish Sentiment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/markets\/dowjones\/today.aspx\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Dow Jones Today\">Dow Jones<\/a> Industrial Average (<a href=\"\/stock\/%5EDJI\">^DJI<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>307.65 (0.63%)<\/strong> points today, reaching <strong>49,482.15<\/strong>. The primary narrative driving the market was a stronger-than-expected <strong>Q4 GDP Second Estimate<\/strong> and resilient <strong>Initial Jobless Claims<\/strong> data. This &quot;soft landing&quot; optimism boosted sentiment across blue-chip sectors, particularly in technology and healthcare, as investors recalibrated expectations for the <strong>Federal Reserve&#39;s<\/strong> policy path through the remainder of <strong>2026<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Leading the gainers was <strong>IBM (<a href=\"\/stock\/IBM\">IBM<\/a>)<\/strong>, which was up <strong>3.65%<\/strong> to <strong>$237.54<\/strong> following reports of expanded enterprise <strong>AI integration<\/strong> contracts. <strong>UnitedHealth Group (<a href=\"\/stock\/UNH\">UNH<\/a>)<\/strong> also saw significant momentum, up <strong>3.53%<\/strong> to <strong>$284.20<\/strong>, as analysts upgraded the healthcare giant on improved medical loss ratio projections. Heavyweight <strong>Microsoft (<a href=\"\/stock\/MSFT\">MSFT<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>2.29%<\/strong> to <strong>$400.60<\/strong>, while financial leaders <strong>American Express (<a href=\"\/stock\/AXP\">AXP<\/a>)<\/strong> and <strong>Visa (<a href=\"\/stock\/V\">V<\/a>)<\/strong> were up <strong>1.97%<\/strong> and <strong>1.87%<\/strong> respectively, driven by robust consumer spending data.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, <strong>Home Depot (<a href=\"\/stock\/HD\">HD<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>2.31%<\/strong> to <strong>$375.57<\/strong>, making it the index&#39;s biggest laggard as higher-for-longer interest rate concerns weighed on the housing market outlook. <strong>Sherwin-Williams (<a href=\"\/stock\/SHW\">SHW<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>2.05%<\/strong> to <strong>$357.25<\/strong>, while aerospace giant <strong>Boeing (<a href=\"\/stock\/BA\">BA<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>1.33%<\/strong> to <strong>$230.36<\/strong>. Other notable laggards included <strong>Salesforce (<a href=\"\/stock\/CRM\">CRM<\/a>)<\/strong>, down <strong>1.30%<\/strong>, and <strong>Merck (<a href=\"\/stock\/MRK\">MRK<\/a>)<\/strong>, which was down <strong>1.19%<\/strong> to <strong>$122.46<\/strong>, as capital rotated out of defensive stocks into cyclical growth names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was up 307.65 (0.63%) points today, reaching 49,482.15. The primary narrative driving the market [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"rank_math_schema_Article":[],"rank_math_focus_keyword":[],"rank_math_description":[],"financial_data_references":[],"stock_symbols_mentioned":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[6803],"tags":[33,293,373,3016,3878,4350,4380,17687],"class_list":["post-59160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-summary-snippets","tag-msft","tag-ibm","tag-unh","tag-dji","tag-hd","tag-dow-jones","tag-stock-market","tag-gdp-data"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}