Dow ends just shy of record after touching new intraday high, as Buffett gives Wall Street a boost
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended nearly flat on Friday after touching a record high in morning action, riding a wave of recent market optimism and an upward push from none other than legendary investor Warren Buffett.
The blue-chip index DJIA rose over 200 points, or 0.5%, and reached an all-time record of 45,203.52 after the opening bell on Friday morning — briefly surpassing its previous intraday record of 45,073.63 set on Dec. 4, according to FactSet data. But the Dow surrendered most of those gains in afternoon trading to finish only modestly higher, falling short of a record close as investors digested economic data
The Dow ended higher by 34.86 points, or less than 0.1%, at 44.946.12, according to FactSet data. It would need to finish above 45,014.04 to officially notch its first record-high close of the year.
Helping propel the index higher Friday were shares of UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH, which soared nearly 12% after Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRK.B BRK.A disclosed a sizable stake in the healthcare conglomerate’s battered shares in its quarterly filings Thursday evening.
UnitedHealth’s stock contributed more than 167 points to the Dow after the opening bell, putting the company’s shares on track for their best day since November 2020, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The Dow was the last of the three major U.S. stock indexes, including the S&P 500 SPX and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, to hit a fresh intraday record in 2025 — a rare divergence between the three benchmarks, which generally move together.
One reason the Dow has lagged behind the broader stock market is its nature as a price-weighted index. Unlike the S&P 500 — which is a market-cap-weighted index that gives greater influence to larger companies with a higher market capitalization — the 30-member Dow solely considers the share prices of its components, making it particularly sensitive to price movements.
“The Dow is not as broad-based as the Nasdaq or the S&P 500, and it tracks a much smaller or more mature subsection of the stock market,” said Timothy Chubb, chief investment officer at Girard.
“And because it’s price-weighted, it’s not necessarily something we put too much thought into, just given the fact that it really isn’t a fair representation of the value of a company,” Chubb told MarketWatch in a phone interview on Friday.