Stocks rose higher at the end of a volatile trading day on Thursday as Wall Street continued its multi-session sell-off in response to the implications of higher-for-longer rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose over 100 points, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite added 0.5% and 0.7%, respectively.
Here's how the market settled on Thursday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +0.53% or +21.27 points to 4,012.32
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +0.33% or +108.82 points to 33,153.91
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +0.72% or +83.33 points to 11,590.40
Nvidia's (NASDAQ: NVDA) stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings sent the chipmaker's shares over 14% higher Thursday morning, even as the company's gaming segment posted weak revenue compared to the year prior. Investors were encouraged by Nvidia's plans to partner with artificial intelligence platforms--with its data center segment growing 11% year-over-year.
CEO Jensen Huang said on a call with analysts that AI is at an "inflection point" and is driving businesses of all sizes to buy the company's chips to develop machine learnings software. "Generative AI's versatility and capability has triggered a sense of urgency at enterprises around the world to develop and deploy AI strategies."
Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) upgraded Nvidia to a Buy rating from Neutral on Thursday, arguing that the company poses to benefit from increased AI adoption. Analyst Toshiya Hari said the "combination of positive estimate revisions and a potential expansion in the stock's multiple -- consistent with historical recovery phases -- will drive continued outperformance in the stock."
Elsewhere for earnings, Nikola (NASDAQ: NKLA) shares fell over 7% after the electric semi-truck maker reported just 20 deliveries in the fourth-quarter and produced revenue that fell well below expectations. The company said it expects to deliver between 250 and 350 battery-electric trucks and 125 to 150 fuel-cell trucks in 2023.
Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID) also guided for higher EV production in 2023 after reporting a revenue shortfall in the fourth-quarter. The company expects to make between 10,000 and 14,000 vehicles in 2023. Its disappointing revenue led Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) to downgrade shares over near-term demand concerns.
"We now expect it could take until 2027+ for LCID to break even on an operating and cash flow basis (prior 2026) and it will need to raise more capital sooner than we had expected," wrote analyst John Murphy.
Market participants also responded to more economic readings on Thursday. The federal government's second estimate of fourth-quarter GDP was downwardly revised to 2.7% from 2.9% previously calculated, reflecting weaker consumer spending amid persistent inflationary pressures during the holiday spending season.
Filings for first-time unemployment insurance declined again to 192,000 for the week ended Feb. 18, according to the Labor Department's Thursday report. That was 3,000 less than the week before and slightly below Dow Jones estimate of 197,000.
Looking ahead, all eyes will be on January's personal consumption expenditures (PCE) report, which is one of the Fed's key inflation gauges for how its interest rate hikes are impacting the U.S. economy. Economic readings on new home sales and consumer sentiment are also slated for release.