Mid-Day Market Update: Biden Holds Talks With Xi; Pepsi Reports Upbeat Q4

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded lower by 0.13% to 31,397.81, while the NASDAQ rose 0.32% to 14,016.72 and the S&P gained 0.05% to 3,911.85. Initial jobless claims fell by 19,000 to 793,000 in the latest week, continuing their decline for the past several weeks. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden held talks with Chinese premier Xi Jinping for the first time since taking office. Leading and Lagging Sectors Technology shares climbed 1.0% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included RCM Technologies Inc RCMT, up 97%, and MicroVision, Inc. MVIS, up 26%. In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell 3.0%. Top Headline PepsiCo, Inc. PEP reported upbeat earnings for its fourth quarter. PepsiCo reported Q4 earnings of $1.47 per share on revenues of $22.46 billion, with both figures topping estimates. Equities Trading UP Zillow Group Inc ZG shares rose 15.39% to $198.13 after the company reported a Q4 earnings beat. Shares of Zynga Inc ZNGA climbed 8.87% to $12.15 after the company reported its Q4 bookings significantly higher than the consensus estimates. Equities Trading DOWN Anchiano Therapeutics Ltd. ANCN fell 36.56% to $5.05, after having gained more than 180% on Wednesday. Tilray, Inc. TLRY declined 39.62% to $38.58, on Reddit-inspired retail trading. Aurora Cannabis Inc ACB fell 19.19% to $15.29 with the Reddit-fueled rally losing steam. Commodities In commodity news, oil traded down 0.55% to $58.36, while gold traded down 0.98% to $1,824.70. Silver traded down 0.44% Thursday to $26.96, while copper fell 0.19% to $3.77. Euro zone European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 rose 0.46%, Italy's FTSE MIB Index gained 0.18%, the German DAX gained 0.77%, and UK shares rose 0.07%, Meanwhile, the French CAC 40 slid 0.02% and the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.34%. Economics The US Budget Plan for fiscal 2022 will be announced at 2:00 p.m. ET.