By Steffen Gosenheimer
DOW JONES–The US stock markets rose on Friday after the US Supreme Court made its long-awaited ruling on US President Donald Trump’s global tariffs. Accordingly, the tariffs are unlawful because the emergency law sought by Trump does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.
Before the judge’s ruling was announced, the indices had fallen slightly after US economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2025 was even weaker than economists had already expected. In addition, the price increase for personal expenses in December was a tad higher than expected, which put an additional damper on the interest rate reduction hopes that had recently been postponed. However, the tariff ruling put the data, as well as declining US purchasing managers’ indices in February, and ongoing concerns about a military escalation in the Middle East into the background.
At the end of the trading day, the narrow Dow Jones index was 0.5 percent higher at 49,626 points. The S&P 500 advanced by 0.7 percent and the technology-heavy Nasdaq indices by 0.9 percent. Market participants explained that the reaction was not positive by saying that the Trump administration would be able to find other ways to justify and thus maintain the tariffs. In addition, many players now fear a phase of increased uncertainty with regard to how Trump will react. In an initial reaction, he described the ruling as a “disgrace” and immediately threatened substitute tariffs and a global tariff of 10 percent.
According to initial information, there were 1,612 (Thursday: 1,258) price winners on the Nyse and 1,135 (1,488) losers. 66 (63) titles closed unchanged.
Little happened on the bond market; the ten-year yield remained at 4.08 percent. Regarding the weak US growth, which could actually have caused falling yields, it was said that this was probably also due to the temporary government shutdown, which put it into perspective somewhat.
The dollar weakened somewhat following the tariff ruling. The euro recently cost 1.1786 dollars, the dollar index lost 0.2 percent. According to market observers, one consequence of the ruling could be more imports into the USA, which would have a dollar-negative effect.
The price of gold rose by 1.9 percent to $5,094. It benefited from the weakening dollar, but also from its reputation as a safe haven in view of the feared phase of greater uncertainty. Oil prices were little moved after recently rising to multi-month highs amid tensions in the Middle East.
On the stock market, the most recently solid energy stocks were at the bottom of the rankings, and their industry index lost 0.7 percent. The daily winner was the sub-index of communications service providers with an increase of 2.6 percent. We were also looking for stocks from the transport sector.
Nvidia increased by 1.0 percent. According to media reports, the AI chip flagship only wants to invest $30 billion in the latest round of financing from ChatGPT developer OpenAI. Previously, Nvidia wanted to invest up to $100 billion, according to the Financial Times.
Opendoor Technologies jumped 7.5 percent after the real estate platform posted fourth-quarter revenue well above expectations. Grail fell by around 50 percent after the company’s cancer test failed.
Akamai Technologies fell 14.0 percent. The cloud service provider had presented business figures above market expectations. However, high investments were detrimental. They are expected to make up 23 to 26 percent of annual sales in the current year compared to 19 percent in 2025.
AppLovin rose by 1.6 percent. The digital advertising specialist is planning its own social networking platform. Copart prices fell by 3.1 percent. The vehicle auctioneer disappointed with weak business figures. Chemours fell 16.5 percent. The chemical company recorded a decline in sales in the fourth quarter and also disappointed with its profit forecast.
INDEX last +/- % +/- abs. End of the previous day
DJIA 49,625.97 +0.5 230.81 49,395.16
S&P 500 6,909.51 +0.7 47.62 6,861.89
NASDAQ Comp 22,886.07 +0.9 203.34 22,682.73
NASDAQ 100 25,012.62 +0.9 215.28 24,797.34
FOREIGN EXCHANGE last +/- % +/- abs. End of the previous day
EUR/USD 1.1786 +0.1 0.0014 1.1772
EUR/JPY 182.74 +0.2 0.2700 182.47
EUR/CHF 0.9132 +0.1 0.0010 0.9122
EUR/GBP 0.8735 -0.1 -0.0005 0.874
USD/JPY 155.03 +0.0 0.0500 154.98
GBP/USD 1.3487 +0.2 0.0025 1.3462
USD/CNY 6.908 +0.1 0.0070 6.9080
USD/CNH 6.898 -0.0 -0.0012 6.8992
AUS/USD 0.7083 +0.4 0.0025 0.7058
Bitcoin/USD 67,721.04 +1.2 808.04 66,913.00
ROHOEL last +/- % +/- abs. End of the previous day
WTI/Nymex 66.39 +0.1 0.06 66.43
Brent/ICE 71.57 -0.1 -0.09 71.66
Metals last +/- % +/- abs. End of the previous day
Gold 5,094.08 +1.9 95.12 4,998.96
Silver 84.24 +7.5 5.89 78.35
Platinum 2,163.60 +4.5 93.20 2,070.40
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DJG/DJN/gos
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 20, 2026 4:17 p.m. ET (21:17 GMT)
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