U.S. stocks traded higher midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining around 200 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.68% to 50,031.50 while the NASDAQ gained 0.85% to 26,625.71. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.70% to 7,497.13.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares jumped by 0.9% on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, materials stocks fell by 0.5%.

Top Headline

Dillard’s Inc (NYSE:DDS) shares gained around 3% on Thursday as the company reported upbeat earnings for the first quarter.

The company posted quarterly earnings of $16.04 per share which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $10.37 per share. The company reported quarterly sales of $1.568 billion which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.555 billion.

Equities Trading UP
           

  • Snail Inc (NASDAQ:SNAL) shares shot up 173% to $1.37 after the company reported better-than-expected first-quarter financial results
  • Shares of POET Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:POET) got a boost, surging 29% to $18.55 after the company announced it entered into a supply agreement with Lumilens to establish a strategic joint development and commercial technology partnership to advance a new class of wafer-level photonic integration for frontier AI infrastructure.
  • Robo.ai Inc (NASDAQ:AIIO) shares were also up, gaining 45% to $3.81 as the company announced the launch of its NeuroStream technology platform.

Equities Trading DOWN

  • Aeluma Inc (NASDAQ:ALMU) shares dropped 32% to $21.30 after the company reported worse-than-expected third-quarter sales results and narrowed its FY26 sales guidance below estimates.
  • Shares of Stak Inc (NASDAQ:STAK) were down 38% to $1.47 after the company reported fiscal first-half 2026 financial results that showed slowing profitability despite higher revenue growth.
  • Regenxbio Inc (NASDAQ:RGNX) was down, falling 38% to $6.21 after the company reported worse-than-expected first-quarter financial results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1% to $100.97 while gold traded down 0.4% at $4,689.10.

Silver traded down 4.9% to $85.010 on Thursday, while copper fell 1.2% to $6.6000.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 rose 0.5%, while Spain's IBEX 35 Index rose 0.7%. London's FTSE 100 rose 0.1%, Germany's DAX rose 1%, while France's CAC 40 gained 0.6%.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Thursday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 falling 0.98%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gaining 0.002%, China's Shanghai Composite dipping 1.52% and India's BSE Sensex gaining 1.06%

Economics

  • U.S. initial jobless claims increased by 12,000 from the previous week to 211,000 during the first week of May, compared to market estimates of 205,000.
  • U.S. export prices rose by 3.3% month-over-month in April compared to a revised 1.5% gain in March.
  • U.S. import prices increased by 1.9% month-over-month in April, compared to market estimates of a 1% gain.
  • U.S. retail sales rose 0.5% month-over-month in April compared to a revised 1.6% gain in the previous month.

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