S&P 500 rises slightly on Thursday, but is still on pace for its worst month of the year: Live updates

Individual investor bearishness climbed to 40.9%, the highest since mid-May, from 34.6% last week, in the latest weekly survey by the American Association of Individual Investors. The survey asks investors their outlook for stocks over the next six months.

Conversely, optimism retreated to 27.8%, a four-month low, from 31.3% last week.

The historical average for bearishness is 31.0% and for bullishness is 37.5%.

Bullish sentiment is below its historical average for the sixth week in seven, and has dropped by 14.4 percentage points in just the past three weeks.

— Scott Schnipper

AMD climbed nearly 5% on Thursday as investors reacted to comments made a day earlier by Microsoft's technology chief that noted the chip maker's growing role in artificial intelligence.

"They're making increasingly compelling GPU offerings that I think are going to become more and more important to the marketplace in the coming years," Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott said at the Code Conference in California on Wednesday.

Microsoft shares rose about 0.4% in afternoon trading on Thursday.

— Jordan Novet, Alex Harring

Individual investors have sold off this mega-cap stock over the past week, according to JPMorgan. That aligns with a broader trend seen by the firm of retail investors gradually selling off big technology names.

CNBC Pro subscribers can click here to see which stock it is.

— Alex Harring

Stocks gained into the final hour of trading.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 126 points, or about 0.4%. The S&P 500 rose 0.6%, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.8%.

— Sarah Min

UBS says a key language education stock can find more room to run thanks to a growing user base and an application boost from generative artificial intelligence.

The firm initiated coverage of the stock with a buy rating in a Wednesday note.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Brian Evans

A nearly 1% rally for the Nasdaq Composite on Thursday briefly pulled the technology-heavy index above flat on the week.

The composite flickered above flat on a week-to-date basis as of Thursday afternoon. It closed Wednesday's session down about 0.9% on the week.

Despite the gains in the session, the Nasdaq is still on pace to end the trading month and quarter, which both end on Friday, with steep losses. The index is down about 5.9% on the month and 4.2% on the quarter.

— Alex Harring

As the end of the quarter nears, the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average is on pace to end more than 2% lower.

Walgreens Boots has suffered the largest declines in the quarter, down by 26.6% quarter-to-date as of Thursday afternoon. Athletic retailer Nike is the second-largest loser, down nearly 19%, followed by American Express and Verizon, which have fallen 13.7% and 12.6%, respectively.

— Hakyung Kim

GameStop shares fell into the red in mid-morning trading and are now down more than 1%, erasing the premarket gains that followed the announcement that Ryan Cohen will take over as CEO, effective immediately.

Cohen, the co-founder of Chewy, is no stranger to GameStop. He has been an activist investor in GameStop and was previously serving as the company's executive chairman.

Cohen began building his stake in GameStop shortly before the meme stock mania, which has been turned into a new movie called "Dumb Money." Cohen became something of a hero for retailer traders, who saw him as an ally in their fight against hedge funds that were shorting the stock.

But turnaround efforts from Cohen and other GameStop leaders have so-far failed to boost sales for the retailer compared to pre-pandemic levels. GameStop fired its previous CEO in June. Cohen already had sway at GameStop when that CEO was originally hired, in 2021. The company's CFO also resigned in July.

— Jesse Pound

The "relentless" rise in the U.S. Dollar, rates and oil have created what Strategas' technical and macro head Chris Verrone calls the "unholy trinity" of macro investing. 

Both oil and the 1-year yields hit new 52-week highs on Tuesday despite overbought conditions in recent weeks, according to Verrone — which he called "the signature of a strong trend." 

"Crude's bid also remains evident with the continued outperformance from the Energy stocks – but it's not without a cost, and on the other side of Energy's strength remains Consumer Discretionary," said Verrone. 

"In the tactical sense, there are some oversold conditions developing for both the broader market and its weakest components, but we'd stop short of calling sentiment panicked. Be very critical of any rallies that develop over coming weeks, as individual stock trends are damaged and the macro may have other intentions," he added.

— Hakyung Kim

JPMorgan upgraded Huntington Ingalls Industries stock in a Thursday note thanks to an excessive backlog of orders and an "attractive entry point."

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Brian Evans

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.

• Trimble — The technology services provider jumped about 6.4% on Thursday on the back of an announcement that AGCO Corp will acquire an 85% stake in Trimble's agribusiness for $2 billion in cash, as the tractor and seeding equipment firm looks to grow its precision-agriculture portfolio.
• Accenture — Shares of the IT and consulting firm fell nearly 5% on Thursday after Accenture reported mixed results for its fiscal fourth quarter. The company reported $2.71 in adjusted earnings per share on $15.99 billion of revenue. Analysts were expecting $2.65 per share on $16.07 billion of revenue, according to FactSet. The company's full-year guidance for the upcoming fiscal year for earnings and cash from operations also came in below expectations, according to StreetAccount.
• Jefferies Financial Group — The financial services stock rose more than 2% even though the company's third-quarter profits were hurt by a slowdown in dealmaking. After the market closed Wednesday, Jefferies posted earnings of 22 cents per share on revenue of $1.18 billion. Still, the company's CEO expressed optimism that momentum in investment banking activity will return.

Read here for the full list.

— Pia Singh

The major averages hit their session highs midday, with the Dow and S&P 500 up more than 200 points and 1%, respectively. The Nasdaq was also up more than 1%.

— Fred Imbert

More than two stocks at the New York Stock Exchange rose for every decliner Thursday, as Wall Street tried to recoup some of September's steep losses. Overall, 1,976 NYSE-listed stocks were higher, while 719 fell.

— Fred Imbert

The slump for Wall Street is starting to look stretched, according to Wolfe Research technical analyst Rob Ginsberg.

"With each passing day, additional signs begin to emerge that we are close to a tradable low. The percent of stocks trading above their 50-day moving average is now down to 15%, while put/calls finally started to exhibit some signs of stress, coming in at 1.4x," Ginsberg said in a note to clients.

However, the latest move lower for stocks appears to be tied to moves in other markets, including a jump in bond yields. That could potentially complicate a rebound, according to Wolfe.

"It's hard for us to have any real conviction in these signals without the fever in rates, the dollar and oil breaking, and today they each closed a touch off their highs," Ginsberg said.

— Jesse Pound

Morgan Stanley reiterated Philip Morris International as a top pick after the company met with investors in Switzerland and shared plans to launch its IQOS heated tobacco device in the U.S. next year.

Analyst Pamela Kaufman said the company has a "peer-leading growth outlook" that will be supported by the IQOS launch as well as the robust growth of Zyn, a nicotine pounch product, in the U.S.

"Importantly, the company set out a new and ambitious target of ~66% of revenue coming from smoke-free products by 2030 compared to its prior target of 50% smoke-free revenue mix by 2025 (though admits it will slightly miss the 2025 objective)," Kaufman said.

CNBC Pro recently looked at why analysts anticipated the meeting could be a catalyst for shares to move higher. In trading Thursday, the stock was recently up nearly 2%.

— Christina Cheddar Berk

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee noted that applying historical precedents on inflation when assessing monetary policy may be a mistake, noting the central bank could be on the verge of something "rare" by lowering price pressures without a blow to the jobs market.

"Believing too strongly in the inevitability of a large trade-off between inflation and unemployment comes with the serious risk of a near-term policy error," Goolsbee said in a speech Thursday.

— Fred Imbert

Data released Thursday shows the volume of pending home sales fell more than economists expected in August, underscoring the pressure faced by potential buyers in the face of higher interest rates.

Pending home sales dropped 7.1% from July to August, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones anticipated a relatively modest slide of 1% month over month.

"Mortgage rates have been rising above 7% since August, which has diminished the pool of home buyers," said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist. "Some would-be home buyers are taking a pause and readjusting their expectations about the location and type of home to better fit their budgets."

Pending home sales had risen 0.9% in the previous month.

— Alex Harring

Deutsche Bank began company coverage of General Electric in a Wednesday note, with analyst Scott Deuschle highlighting GE's aerospace segment.

″[W]e think the stock is well positioned to outperform— even after the big YTD run," Deuschle said. "On valuation, we think Aerospace as a standalone business can trade at a premium to comps, thanks to its status as a market leading propulsion pure-play and high [free cash flow] conversion."

GE stock ticked up 0.3% on Thursday.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Brian Evans

The S&P 500 opened in negative territory on Thursday morning, adding to weeks of poor performance.

The broader index slid 0.2% lower, while the Nasdaq Composite shed 0.4%. On the other hand, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Oil prices surged to their highest level in over a year during Asian trading hours, after crude stocks at a key storage hub fell to their lowest since July last year.

Crude inventories in Cushing, Oklahoma fell to 22 million barrels in the fourth week of September — hovering close to the operational minimum, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). That's a drop of 943,000 barrels compared to the prior week.

The U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures touched $95.03 per barrel during Asia trading hours, marking the highest since August 2022. They were last at $93.16 a barrel.

Global benchmark Brent were at $97.56 a barrel earlier in the session. They last traded at $96.03 a barrel.

— Lee Ying Shan, Sarah Min

Real gross domestic product increased 2.1% at an annualized pace in the second quarter, according to a third and final estimate the Commerce Department released Thursday. That was unchanged from the previous reading but below the Dow Jones estimate for 2.2%.

However, the government revised its previous readings on GDP, cutting first quarter growth for each of the years from 2020 to 2022.

The new readings, respectively, are -5.3%, 5.2% and -2%, compared to the previous -4.6%, 6.3% and -1.6%.

In other economic news Thursday, initial jobless claims totaled 204,000 for the week ended Sept. 23, according to the Labor Department. That was below the estimate for 214,000. Continuing claims rose to 1.67 million, up 12,000 and slightly below the FactSet estimate for 1.675 million.

—Jeff Cox

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Thursday criticized the funding bill from the Senate, saying the measure would not bolster border security.

"I look at the current Senate bill that does nothing to deal with the border security. Don't take my word for it. The governor of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday. He noted New York City's increased spending on shelter for migrants.

"This is something that Democrats and Republicans want to have done," he said.

— Fred Imbert, Sarah Min

Check out the companies making headlines before the bell.

Micron — The chipmaker's shares fell 3.4% Thursday before the bell on the back of a weaker-than-expected earnings forecast. Micron estimates a fiscal first-quarter loss of $1.07 per share, on a non-GAAP basis, while analysts polled by LSEG expected a loss of 95 cents. For the fiscal fourth quarter, the company posted a narrower-than-expected loss as well as revenue that topped expectations. 

GameStop — The meme stock rallied nearly 8% after the company named billionaire activist investor Ryan Cohen as the company's CEO effective immediately. The move comes three months after prior CEO Matthew Furlong was fired.

Duolingo — Shares gained more than 2% in the premarket. UBS initiated coverage of Duolingo on Wednesday with a buy rating, saying it's a "best-in-class brand."

The full list can be found here.

— Hakyung Kim

Shares of meme stock favorite GameStop climbed as much as 10% in premarket trading after the company said Ryan Cohen would assume the chief executive role.

Cohen, an activist investor, takes the CEO role just months after GameStop fired former chief executive Matthew Furlong. The company said Cohen would not be receiving any compensation for work done as chief executive, president and executive chairman.

— Brian Evans

Adam Crisafulli thinks the market is having a tough time figuring out where to go from here.

"US equity investors remain paralyzed, with bulls chastened and diffident while bears worry about oversold prices and the risk of a snap-back rally," he wrote in a note. "News flow since the Wed close was mixed. Encouragingly, European data signaled disinflation. ... However, other news items were downbeat overnight. A US shutdown seems inevitable, the question being how long it lasts and whether it delays publication of the Sept jobs report (on 10/6) and Sept CPI (on 10/12)."

— Fred Imbert, Michael Bloom

European markets opened choppy Thursday, reversing negative momentum seen for much of the week.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index opened 0.1% higher, with sectors spread across positive and negative territory. Travel and leisure stocks were down 0.8%, while oil and gas made the biggest gains, up 0.8%.

— Hannah Ward-Glenton

Seasonally adjusted retail sales in Australia climbed 0.2% in August compared to the prior month. It was slower than the 0.3% expected by economists polled by Reuters.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed retail sales coming in at A$35.4 billion ($22.56 billion), 1.5% higher than the same period a year ago.

This showed the "consumers continued to restrain their retail spending," said Ben Dorber, ABS head of retail statistics. "Historically low trend growth highlights just how much consumers have pulled back in response to cost-of-living pressures."

— Lim Hui Jie

Shares of Sea Limited, the parent firm of e-commerce marketplace Shopee, closed 4.86% higher on Wednesday after Indonesia's ministry of trade said that it has banned e-commerce transactions on social media platforms, in a blow to popular short video app TikTok.

TikTok Shop, the shopping feature of TikTok, competes with Shopee in Indonesia.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan said that TikTok is given a week to become a standalone app or face closure in Indonesia, according to Reuters.

The minister also said that regulation is intended to ensure "fair and just" competition among businesses, as well protect the data of users.

— Sheila Chiang

Shares of Japanese automaker Toyota slipped 0.27% despite reports from Reuters that the company is planning to build a third car plant in India, its first production capacity expansion in the country in over a decade.

In an exclusive, sources told Reuters that Toyota wants to start with capacity of 80,000 to 120,000 vehicles a year for the plant, which the aim of growing to around 200,000 over time. This would increase the company's existing manufacturing capacity in India by as much as 30%.

Reuters also reported that Toyota has started developing a new sport utility vehicle (SUV) for the Indian market that would be launched in early 2026 and be an anchor product for the new factory.

— Lim Hui Jie

Investors playing in the high yield bond space would do well to be picky when adding exposure to their portfolios, says Scott Wren of Wells Fargo.

"At this point in the cycle, we do not want to overweight, or for that matter evenweight, high-yield bonds in portfolios," wrote the firm's senior global market strategist in a Wednesday note. The sector generally isn't the best place for overexposure, especially when the Federal Reserve is expected to keep rates high and recession risk rises, he said.

But pockets of opportunity await discerning investors at the top rung of the high-yield space.

"The [high yield] sector has seen a growing concentration of double-B-rated companies," Wren wrote, noting investors should be selective and stick with the highest quality or BB-rated issuers. "This segment has historically had lower default rates than the rest of its HY brethren."

-Darla Mercado

Friday marks the end of the trading week, month and quarter. To put it simply, it's not looking good for the three major indexes.

Here's where the three stand, with just two trading days left:

The Dow:

• Week to date: down 1.2%
• Month to date: down 3.4%
• Quarter to date: down 2.5%

The S&P 500:

• Week to date: down 1.1%
• Month to date: down 5.2%
• Quarter to date: down 4%

The Nasdaq Composite:

• Week to date: down 0.9%
• Month to date: down 6.7%
• Quarter to date: down 5%

Despite the broad losses, all three indexes are still up on the year, underscoring the strength of the rally seen in the first half of the year.

— Alex Harring

There are still two more trading sessions left in the third quarter, and the energy sector is the big winner thus far.

Energy is up 13.5% for the quarter, propelled by a sharp rise in oil prices. West Texas Intermediate crude futures are up 32% in the quarter, its best performance since the first quarter of 2022. U.S. oil is also up 12% in September, on track for its fourth consecutive monthly gain – a first since May 2022.

Leaders in the energy sector of the S&P 500 include Marathon Petroleum, which is up 30.7% in the quarter. Halliburton and Phillips 66 follow close behind, both up roughly 27% for the period.

Not all energy names are attending the party. Natural gas players Kinder Morgan and EQT are both down more than 3% in the quarter. Those declines arrive alongside a 1.2% fall for natural gas in the period.

— Darla Mercado, Chris Hayes

These are some of the stocks making the biggest moves in extended trading:

• Micron Technology — The chip stock dropped 4% in extended trading after Micron offered weaker-than-expected earnings guidance for the current quarter. 
• Peloton Interactive — The stationary bike manufacturer popped 16% after announcing a five-year partnership to develop content for Lululemon.
• Duckhorn Portfolio — The luxury wine producer lost 2.8% after giving full-year guidance that was worse than analysts anticipated.

See the full list here.

— Alex Harring

Stock futures traded slightly higher shortly after 6 p.m. ET. Futures tied to the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were all up about 0.2%.

— Alex Harring