S&P 500 rises slightly after latest earnings deluge: Live updates

The S&P 500 rose Thursday as Wall Street digested recent quarterly results from a slew of megacap tech companies. Investors are coming off a losing session after the Federal Reserve held steady on rates.

The broad market index advanced 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 83 points, or 0.2%, weighed down by a 4% slide in Caterpillar.

Shares of Meta Platforms and Tesla gained 2% and 5%, respectively, while Microsoft shares dipped more than 5% after the companies reported earnings. Meta beat on top and bottom lines, but Microsoft shares faltered after the company’s quarterly revenue forecast disappointed. Tesla shrugged off an earnings and revenue miss.

Investors were also a bit cautious to buy after fourth-quarter GDP growth came in at just 2.3%, missing expectations.

Other “Magnificent Seven” names are set to report in the coming days, with Apple’s results being due for a Thursday release. Amazon will soon follow suit, as the megacap tech company reports next week.

On Wednesday, all three major averages ended the session lower as a 4% decline in Nvidia weighed on the market. The declines came after the Fed paused its interest rate-cutting campaign, leaving its borrowing rate unchanged in a range between 4.25% and 4.5%. In their post-meeting statement, policymakers noted that inflation remains “somewhat elevated.”

“The implication is that we’re on hold until the inflation rate goes down, and unfortunately it’s probably not going to go down very much in the several months ahead, so I wouldn’t be looking for rate cuts at the next meeting,” Jeffrey Gundlach, DoubleLine Capital CEO, said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”

“We have a relatively stable place where we’re standing, and it kind of supports the fact that the market is in a calm position right now, and so is [Jerome] Powell apparently,” he said.