Wall Street’s main indexes gained on Thursday, boosted by post-earnings gains in Meta and Tesla, but Microsoft’s poor cloud outlook and Cigna’s disappointing results tempered market excitement.
Microsoft fell 4.7% after predicting poor growth in its cloud computing unit. Meta Platforms climbed 4.5% after meeting fourth-quarter revenue predictions, although the company expects first-quarter sales to fall short of expectations. Tesla rose 0.5% after announcing that it would release new, cheaper EV vehicles in the first half of 2025. It also announced plans to pilot a paid driverless car service in June, overshadowing disappointing quarterly results. “We had an assortment of results yesterday, which demonstrated that lofty goals are still rewarded,” said Frédérique Carrier, head of investment strategy at RBC Wealth Management. “We saw that with the disparity performance gap between Tesla and Meta, which both have big ambitions, compared to the market response to Microsoft earnings.”
At 10:01 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 102.06 points, or 0.23%, to 44,815.58, the S&P 500 gained 28.19 points, or 0.47%, to 6,067.50, and the Nasdaq Composite added 74.76 points, or 0.39%, to 19,707.08. Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors rose, with communication services topping the way with a 2.1% increase thanks to Meta. Technology stocks dropped 0.5%.
The Russell 2000 index rose 1.3%. Cigna, a health insurer, fell 9.7% after expecting yearly profit lower than expected and missing fourth-quarter predictions, while United Parcel Service fell 14.8% after forecasting lower revenue in 2025.
Lam Research climbed 5.2% after the chip-making equipment provider anticipated third-quarter revenue above forecasts, owing to increased orders from semiconductor makers during the AI boom.
Chip-related companies Broadcom and Marvell Technology are up 5.8% and 3.8%, respectively. A measure of semiconductor stocks rose 1.4%. Apple and Intel are slated to release earnings after the markets close. The United States Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, eliminating wording acknowledging lowering inflation from its most recent policy meeting statement. Chair Jerome Powell stated there would be no haste to drop interest rates again unless inflation and job figures indicated it was acceptable.
