Dow and S&P 500 post best day since January; Nasdaq climbs 2% as Big Tech rallies: Live updates

The Dow and S&P 500 posted their best days since January.

The Dow rose 1.6%, while the S&P 500 added 2%.

The Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.4% in its best day since last month as Big Tech rallied.

— Alex Harring

Individual investor pessimism toward stocks rose to 38.5% from 35.1% in the latest weekly survey, the 10th week in a row bearishness is above its historic average of 31%, the American Association of Individual Investors said.

Optimism that stocks will rise in price over the next six months narrowed to 24.1% from 27.2% last week, while neutral opinion (that stocks won't move much) was little changed at 37.4%, from 37.7% last week.

Neutral sentiment is above the historical average (31.5%) for the 16th week in the past 17, the AAI said.

Bearish sentiment that's "now approaching an unusually high level again," according to the AAII, is a good sign for contrarian investors. The thinking goes that the more bearish investors say they are, the closer they are to having finished their sales of stock, and the higher their cash holdings, giving them firepower to put into stocks.

AAII members answered a special question this week that asked "if they think investors are too bullish or bearish right now." Their answer:

• Investors are too bullish: 30.4%
• Investors are too bearish: 30.4%
• Sentiment toward the market is about right: 18.6%
• No opinion/unsure: 20.6%

Could there be a clearer signal of the market's current tug-of-war?

— Scott Schnipper

Shares of Hershey rose 4% on Thursday and hit a new all-time high after the candymaker's first-quarter results beat expectations on the top and bottom lines.

Hershey also raised its guidance for net sales group and earnings per share to the high end of its previous outlook.

The growth in the first quarter came from a combination of volume gains and higher prices, the company said.

And Hershey isn't done raising prices. CFO Steve Voskuil said on the earnings call that consumer demand is holding up better than previously expected, according to a transcript from FactSet.

— Jesse Pound

The three major indexes remained in the green as investors entered the final hour of Thursday's session.

The Nasdaq Composite led the way with a 2.5% gain. The S&P 500 added 2%, while the Dow rose 1.6%.

— Alex Harring

Barclays is still eyeing Activision Blizzard stock despite the collapse of the company's deal with Microsoft.

The firm raised its price target on the company on Wednesday, and said the company can remain strong on its own.

"Despite the deal likely dead in water, we view this as a strong buying opportunity given its cheap relative valuation to EA, momentum in core franchises (CoD/Candy Crush), along with upcoming catalysts in Diablo 4/Warzone Mobile," Barclays analyst Mario Lu wrote Wednesday.

Read the full story here.

— Brian Evans

Communication services stocks are on pace for their best day since Feb. 2, with the sector last up about 5.8%. Meta drove gains in the sector after posting first-quarter results that beat analysts' expectations. The tech stock was last up more than 15%.

— Sarah Min

KLA Corporation was among the notable names boosting the Nasdaq Composite during midday trading. The tech-heavy index was last up more than 2%.

KLA climbed more than 5% after the semiconductor equipment maker's latest fiscal third quarter results beat estimates on the top and bottom lines, according to consensus estimates from FactSet.

— Sarah Min

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.

Honeywell International —  Shares climbed 3.2% after Honeywell exceeded expectations on the top and bottom lines in its latest quarter. The conglomerate reported adjusted first-quarter earnings of $2.07 per share on revenues of $8.86 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv forecasted earnings per share of $1.93 on revenues of $8.52 billion.

Fidelity National Information Services — The financial products company's stock climbed 3.5% on the back of better-than-expected first-quarter results. Fidelity National earned an adjusted $1.29 per share on revenue of $3.51 billion. Analysts polled by StreetAccount expected a profit of $1.21 on revenue of $3.41 billion.

Southwest Airlines — The airline company's shares slipped 3.4% following a wider-than-expected loss for the first quarter. The carrier had a meltdown in the final days of December, when it canceled more than 16,000 flights in late December. The incident resulted in a $325 million revenue impact for the first quarter, Southwest said.

Check out the full list here.

— Hakyung Kim

Semiconductor stocks are generally sitting out the market rally on Thursday, and some cautious commentary about the auto market could be the culprit, according to Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge.

Mobileye Global, a software company that works on assisted and autonomous driving, slashed its outlook for the year on Thursday morning, citing a slowdown in China.

"There were a handful of weak semiconductor reports Wed night (including MXL and WOLF), but this quote from MBLY is spooking people the most – "The China electric vehicle market has been negatively impacted by meaningful pricing actions by a global EV OEM, reduction of government electric vehicle subsidies, and general economic weakness in the country," Crisafulli said in note on Thursday.

Shares of Mobileye were down 22% in midday trading. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) was shuffling between gains and losses.

— Jesse Pound

Self-driving company Mobileye fell more than 23% after the company pulled back its expectations for full-year performance.

The company now expects 2023 revenue to finish between $2.065 billion and $2.114 billion. Mobileye also said to expect an operating loss for the year between $166 million and $195 million.

In January, Mobileye said to expect revenue between $2.192 billion and $2.282 billion. It also estimated a smaller operating loss of between $110 million to $160 million.

Management cited weakness in China's electric vehicle market as a driver of the chilled expectations.

— John Rosevear, Alex Harring

Post-earnings losses to Merck and Caterpillar kept gains to the Dow restricted.

Though both beat Wall Street expectations, both were down as investors parsed management commentary and share prices. The two stocks were the worst performers in the 30-stock index, with Merck shedding around 1.5% and Caterpillar sliding just over 3.2%.

The index as a whole, meanwhile. was up 0.9% at the same time. McDonald's and JPMorgan were the two best performers, with each gaining around 1.3%.

— Alex Harring

Post-earnings rallies from Meta and Comcast have pushed the communication services sector of the S&P 500 far above the rest of the index.

The sector is up more than 4.5% Thursday, led up by advances of more than 14% and 6% from Meta and Comcast, respectively. Consumer discretionary, by comparison, was the second best performing sector with a relatively muted 1.5% gain.

Eight of the 11 sectors were trading up in what's so far been a winning day for the index. As of whole, the S&P 500 has gained around 0.8%. Health care and energy were the two worst performing sectors, with each dropping around 0.8%.

Disclaimer: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

— Alex Harring

Video game company Electronic Arts