US open: Stocks mixed following Nvidia earnings

Wall Street trading got off to a mixed start early on Thursday as market participants thumbed over Q3 earnings from tech giant Nvidia.

As of 1530 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.10% at 43,450.68, while the S&P 500 lost 0.43% to 5,891.69 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 1.22% weaker at 18,735.07.

The Dow opened 42.21 points higher on Thursday, extending gains recorded in the previous session despite escalating geopolitical tensions with Russia.

Thursday's primary focus will be earnings from AI-darling Nvidia, with which the chipmaker beat expectations on both the top and bottom lines with its Q3 numbers. However, Nvidia shares still headed south, principally due to sky-high expectations for the world's largest company by market capitalisation.

On the macro front, Americans lined up for unemployment benefits at a decelerated pace in the week ended 16 November, according to the Department of Labor. Initial jobless claims fell by 6,000 week-on-week to 213,000, the lowest reading since April and well and truly missing expectations for an increase to 220,000. The four-week moving average, which aims to strip out week-to-week volatility, fell by 3,750 to 217,750, while the non-seasonally adjusted claim count fell by 17,750 to 213,035. Outstanding claims, on the other hand, rose to 1.90m - the highest reading seen for the last three years.

Elsewhere, the Philly Fed's manufacturing index unexpectedly declined to -5.5 in November, down from 10.3 in October and well below expectations for a reading of 8. This month's print marked the second negative reading since January, indicating that manufacturing activity had softened across the region. The new orders index came to 8.9 and the shipments index was 4.5, down from 14.2 and 7.4, respectively.

On another note, Existing home sales increased by 3.5% in October, according to the National Association of Realtors, up from September's 14-month low. Existing home sales hit a seasonally adjusted annualised rate of 3.96m in October, slightly ahead of market expectations for a reading of 3.93m. Existing home sales prices were also higher, up 4% at $407,200 to put a stop to a three-month-long streak of declining home prices.

Still to come, the Kansas Fed's November manufacturing activity index will be released at 1600 GMT.

In the corporate space, PayPal experienced a brief worldwide outage on Thursday after a "systems issue". Paypal said withdrawals, express checkout, cryptocurrency services, its peer-to-peer payments app, Venmo, and its foreign-currency division, Xoom, had all been affected.

In terms of earnings, both Gap and Intuit were slated to report earnings after the closing bell on Thursday

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $336.33 3.26%
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) $592.50 1.82%
Home Depot Inc. (HD) $406.44 1.61%
International Business Machines Corporation (CDI) (IBM) $217.99 1.58%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) $243.43 1.10%
Walmart Inc. (WMT) $87.94 0.88%
American Express Co. (AXP) $289.51 0.63%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $24.15 0.58%
Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) $171.83 0.55%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $383.38 0.49%

Dow Jones - Fallers

McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $285.45 -1.88%
Boeing Co. (BA) $143.45 -1.80%
Amgen Inc. (AMGN) $285.27 -0.90%
Apple Inc. (AAPL) $226.93 -0.90%
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) $8.20 -0.42%
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $413.76 -0.42%
3M Co. (MMM) $127.61 -0.18%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $97.39 -0.06%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $57.49 -0.03%
Dowdupont Inc. (DWDP) $0.00 0.00%

S&P 500 - Risers

Deere & Co. (DE) $428.52 5.82%
Carmax Inc. (KMX) $79.97 4.32%
Arista Networks Inc. (ANET) $396.30 3.82%
Fluor Corp. (FLR) $54.36 3.48%
Intuit Inc. (INTU) $672.39 3.35%
Amphenol Corp. (APH) $73.25 3.33%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $336.33 3.26%
Eaton Corporation plc (ETN) $371.89 3.17%
Quanta Services Inc. (PWR) $341.00 2.61%
Ipg Photonics Corp. (IPGP) $75.41 2.57%

S&P 500 - Fallers

Alphabet Inc. Class A (GOOGL) $167.00 -5.10%
Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOG) $168.53 -4.96%
Universal Health Services Inc. (UHS) $191.76 -2.92%
Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance Inc. (ULTA) $336.05 -2.10%
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $285.45 -1.88%
Boeing Co. (BA) $143.45 -1.80%
Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) $143.96 -1.32%
AES Corp. (AES) $13.11 -1.28%
Meta Platforms Inc. (META) $558.88 -1.17%
Henry Schein Inc. (HSIC) $72.90 -1.13%

Nasdaq 100 - Risers

Intuit Inc. (INTU) $672.39 3.35%
PACCAR Inc. (PCAR) $112.69 2.45%
Lam Research Corp. (LRCX) $71.45 2.00%
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (CHKP) $180.24 1.93%
Workday, Inc. (WDAY) $264.28 1.87%
Western Digital Corp. (WDC) $65.02 1.85%
Dollar Tree Inc (DLTR) $64.19 1.60%
Synopsys Inc. (SNPS) $550.04 1.57%
Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT) $173.15 1.56%
Autodesk Inc. (ADSK) $312.49 1.51%

Nasdaq 100 - Fallers

Baidu Inc. (BIDU) $80.75 -6.92%
Alphabet Inc. Class A (GOOGL) $167.00 -5.10%
Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOG) $168.53 -4.96%
Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance Inc. (ULTA) $336.05 -2.10%
Sirius XM Holdings Inc (SIRI) $24.77 -1.75%
Liberty Global plc Series A (LBTYA) $13.06 -1.58%
Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) $143.96 -1.32%
Biomarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (BMRN) $61.76 -1.28%
Meta Platforms Inc. (META) $558.88 -1.17%
Henry Schein Inc. (HSIC) $72.90 -1.13%