NEW YORK - Wall Street stocks finished mostly higher on Thursday , with strong results from Tesla and Microsoft offsetting weak profits from Ford and some other companies.
Through Wednesday, companies in the S&P 500 were expected to see a 3.8 per cent drop in year-over-year earnings, although seven of 11 sectors were besting analyst expectations, Stovall said in a note.The broad-based S&P added 0.2 per cent to close at 3,010.29, leaving it within close distance of an all-time record, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 0.8 per cent to end the day at 8,185.80.
Tech giant Microsoft gained 2 per cent as it reported a 21 per cent increase in quarterly profits to US$10.7 billion on its thriving cloud computing business. The companies signaled they expect to be reimbursed by Boeing for hundreds of millions of dollars in costs related to the troubles with the aircraft.