Wall Street Remains Flat, Microsoft Eyes Heaviest Drop Since Late 2022, Gold Sets Fresh Records: What's Driving Markets Thursday?

Wall Street is struggling to find risk-on momentum, with major indexes stuck near the flatline at midday as investors assess the latest earnings reports from mega-cap tech stocks and weaker-than-expected U.S. economic growth in the final quarter of 2024.

After Tuesday's rally — which followed a selloff triggered by DeepSeek’s impact earlier in the week — caution has taken hold, signaling the wounds from the downturn are still fresh.

Microsoft Corp. MSFT is among the hardest-hit stocks, plunging more than 6%, which could mark its worst daily decline since October 2022.

Despite reporting overall stronger-than-expected earnings, Microsoft’s cloud segment, Azure, fell short of growth expectations, and the company slightly missed its revenue guidance for the ongoing quarter.

In contrast, Meta Platforms Inc. META climbed 1.7% post-earnings, reaching new all-time highs.

Another major laggard was United Parcel Service Inc. UPS, which plummeted 15%, potentially heading for its worst single-day drop since going public in 2002.

UPS Chief Financial Officer Brian Dykes revealed during the earnings call the company reached an agreement in principle with Amazon.com AMZN to significantly cut the volume of packages it handles for the e-commerce giant, aiming for a 50% reduction by the second half of 2026.

The U.S. dollar and bond yields remained stable following the Federal Reserve's decision Wednesday to keep interest rates unchanged at 4.25%-4.5%.

Among commodities, precious metals stood out, with gold rising 1.4% to new all-time highs and silver climbing 2.4%.

Bitcoin BTC/USD edged up 1% to around $105,000.

Thursday’s Performance In Major US Indices, ETFs

Major Indices	Price	1-day %chg
• Russell 2000	2,306.29	1.0%
• Dow Jones	44,866.30	0.3%
• S&P 500	6,054.43	0.3%
• Nasdaq 100	21,420.81	0.0%

According to Benzinga Pro data:

• The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY inched 0.2% higher to $603.10.
• The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average DIA edged up by 0.2% to $448.22.
• The tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust Series QQQ edged 0.1% lower to $521.30.
• The iShares Russell 2000 ETF IWM rose 1.2% to $228.50.
• The Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund XLU outperformed, up 1.7%; the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund XLK, lagged down 0.4%.

Thursday’s Stock Movers

• Tesla Inc. TSLA rose 4.4% in reaction to quarterly earnings results.
• Other stocks reacting to earnings include:
  • ServiceNow Inc. NOW down 12.6%
  • International Business Machines Corp. IBM up 12.3%
  • Lam Research Corp. LRCX up 7.96%
  • Raymond James Financial Inc. RJF down 1.15%
  • Ameriprise Financial Inc. AMP down 3.08%
  • Waste Management Inc. WM up 4.53%
  • Las Vegas Sands Corp. LVS up 10.4%
  • Lazard Inc. LAZ up 3.58%
  • Kirby Corp. KEX up 7.22%
  • Flagstar Financial Inc. FLG up 16.46%
  • Caterpillar Inc. CAT down 4.43%
  • Northrop Grumman Corp. NOC down 2.04%
  • Dow Inc. DOW down 6.09%
  • Valero Energy Corp. VLO down 2.5%,
  • Cigna Group CI down 8.46%,
• Major companies slated to report earnings after the close are Apple Inc. AAPL, Visa Inc. V, Intel Corp. INTC, KLA Corp. KLAC, PPG Industries Inc. PPG, ResMed Inc. RMD, Baker Hughes Co. BKR, Deckers Outdoor Corp. DECK and LPL Financial Holdings Inc. LPLA.

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