US close: Stocks jump on wither big day for earnings, data

dl nyse new york stock exchange wall st street city finance dow jones nasdaq sp finance dollar dollars us usa united states of america 2 — New York Stock ExchangeSharecast photo / Josh White

Wall Street stocks were in the green early on Thursday as market participants thumbed over a number of big-name earnings reports and digested Q1 GDP data.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.57% at 33,826.16, while the S&P 500 advanced 1.96% to 4,135.35, and the Nasdaq Composite finished 2.43% firmer at 12,142.24.

The Dow closed 524.29 points higher on Thursday, erasing the losses recorded in the previous session as investors digested a number of major corporate earnings.

Quarterly earnings were in focus yet again, with Facebook parent company Meta Platforms beating expectations and providing stronger-than-anticipated guidance for the current quarter, and trade bellwether Caterpillar also posting better-than-expected numbers.

American pharmaceuticals maker Eli Lilly reported continued core business growth and pipeline momentum in its first-quarter numbers on Thursday, despite missing Wall Street expectations on its earnings, while rival Merck said that, despite a 9% decrease in total worldwide sales year-on-year to $14.49bn, it saw a "strong underlying performance" across key growth drivers, particularly in oncology and vaccines.

Southwest Airlines reported a wider-than-expected loss as the impact of its holiday meltdown stretched well into 2023, and American Airlines beat earnings estimates by $0.01 per share even as revenues fell short of expectations.

On the macro front, the American economy grew more slowly than anticipated at the start of 2023, according to the Department of Commerce, which said gross domestic product expanded at a quarterly annualised pace of 1.1%.

Economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics had pencilled-in a slowdown to a pace of 0.7% and before Thursday's release cautioned that the consensus estimate of 1.9% had likely not yet been fully updated and was therefore likely lower.

Furthermore, Commerce revised its previous estimate for fourth-quarter GDP growth up from 2.0% to 2.6%.

Elsewhere, fewer Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the previous week than economists had anticipated, according to the Department of Labor, which said in seasonally adjusted terms, the number of initial unemployment claims dropped by 16,000 over the week ending on 22 April to 230,000.

Economists had pencilled-in a reading of 250,000.

The four-week moving average, meanwhile, slipped by 4,000 to 236,000.

On another note, US pending home sales tumbled 23.2% year-on-year in March, according to the National Association of Realtors, following a 21.1% slump in February to mark a 22nd straight month of declines.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com. Additional reporting by Iain Gilbert.

Dow Jones - Risers

Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) $38.79 5.07%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $99.93 3.44%
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $304.83 3.20%
Apple Inc. (AAPL) $168.41 2.84%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $29.86 2.79%
3M Co. (MMM) $105.33 2.34%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $195.94 2.31%
Travelers Company Inc. (TRV) $180.34 2.06%
Home Depot Inc. (HD) $293.93 2.03%
American Express Co. (AXP) $158.45 1.75%