Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Check out the companies making headlines midday Thursday:

General Electric — GE rose 2.8 percent in trading after CEO Larry Culp expressed optimism about the company's struggling power business bouncing back in 2020 and 2021. While the company's 2019 outlook was worse than analysts expected, Culp's first forecast gave shareholders hope that GE's fortunes have begun turning around.