Nasdaq fights higher after three losing days as investors buy tech stocks: Live updates – CNBC

All three major benchmarks were trading in positive territory shortly into the final hour of trading. In fact, they were all near session highs. Here is where they stand:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average is higher by 8 points, or 0.03%
• The S&P 500 is higher by 0.3%
• The Nasdaq Composite is up by 0.79%.

— Sarah Min

Shares of Sarepta Therapeutics have resumed trading after the company announced that the Food and Drug Administration had granted approval to a gene therapy for muscular dystrophy. The stock was halted for about 45 minutes.

The therapy, a one-time treatment called Elevidys, is only approved for children between the ages of four and five.

The stock has been volatile since trading resumed but is little changed for the session.

S&P 500 sectors were about evenly split in afternoon trading. Five sectors were trading in positive territory, with consumer discretionary, health care, and information technology leading gains. Six sectors were in the red, with energy, real estate and utilities the biggest laggards in the index.

— Sarah Min

Oil traded down more than 4% after the larger-than-anticipated interest rate hike from the Bank of England overshadowed crude inventory slides.

Brent futures slipped $3.33, or 4.3%, to trade at $73.79 a barrel. Meanwhile, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures, called WTI for short, dropped $3.41, which equates to 4.7%, to sit at $69.12 per barrel.

The English bank’s hike was top of mind on Thursday, despite news of U.S. supply falling, which surprised analysts.

— Alex Harring

New York Stock Exchange decliners outnumbered advancing stocks 2.2 to 1 in early afternoon trading.

— Sarah Min

The Nasdaq Composite is down nearly 1% on the week as of Thursday afternoon, putting the technology-heavy index on pace to snap a weekly winning streak not exceeded since 2019.

If this performance holds through Friday’s close, it would end a streak of eight straight weeks that ended higher. That’s the longest streak since a 10-week period that ended in March 2019.

The Nasdaq Composite has rallied in 2023 due to investor excitement around artificial intelligence and the outlook for other growth stocks. Despite the downturn so far this week, the index is still up nearly 5% on the month and almost 30% since the start of 2023.

Ride-sharing giant Uber could earn inclusion into the S&P 500 next year, according to Evercore ISI’s head of internet research Mark Mahaney.

“I think we’re finally, finally starting to break out on this stock after multiple years of really nothing,” Mahaney told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Thursday. “I picture they get added to the S&P 500 next year.”

Shares of Uber have added more than 75% so far this year.

The spike in valuations tied to artificial intelligence should continue, but Barclays sees a narrow group of foundational hardware stocks experiencing most of the near-term economic value.

“Valuations of primary beneficiaries are not extreme, and their earnings should grow into them over time,” wrote strategist Venu Krishna in a Thursday note. “The U.S. market and Tech hegemony is set to continue, but spoils are likely to accrue to a few key Tech names.”

Record valuation premiums and returns within the U.S., while justified given the technology sector’s performance to the rest of the market and higher profitability across sectors, warrant diversification through global equities, Krishna added.

— Samantha Subin

Amazon’s cloud unit said Thursday that it’s allocating $100 million for a center to help companies use generative artificial intelligence, the technology that’s taken off in the months since OpenAI unleashed its ChatGPT chatbot on the public.

The stock was last up 3.5% during midday trading.

Wall Street is getting Amazon‘s retail margin recovery wrong, according to Loop Capital.

“While the timing of the end to AWS revenue deceleration will be the next driver of the stock, we think recovering unit economics in retail is a bigger driver of earnings power,” wrote Rob Sanderson in a Thursday note. “We are confident in our view that consensus is severely mis-modeling this.”

The analyst lifted his price target on shares to $180 from $140, reflecting more than 44% upside from Wednesday’s close. The company’s retail business, he said, looks “much richer” than before the pandemic as it expands advertising and revenue commissions.

“This has led to 585bps of positive leverage to retail segment margin and this is not reversing,” Sanderson said.

— Samantha Subin

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell faced multiple questions Thursday about where interest rates are heading, but he said the focus instead should be on how quickly the Fed is moving.

Policymakers, he insisted, are still committed to using rates to bringing down inflation, but are going to move more slowly than they had been during an aggressive run of hikes going back to March 2022.

“I think the data will tell us what to do,” Powell told members of the Senate Banking Committee. “I think the point of our … last meeting was really to moderate the pace of our decision making on this, because you know, it was very important to move quickly last year, and we did. It’s not so important now.”

—Jeff Cox

Shares of electric vehicle maker Tesla, which were lower all morning, are fighting into the green as investors ignore Wall Street analysts souring on the name and buy anyway.

The shares were significantly lower earlier Thursday after a downgrade from Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas, one of the more notable analysts in the EV space.

Morgan Stanley’s negative view followed a Barclays downgrade a day earlier, which similarly cited Tesla’s recent rally as a signal that investors should take their profits. Jonas, a longtime Tesla bull, said Tesla’s rally is riding on the coattails of investor excitement over artificial intelligence.

“I have to be up-front with you all. While the team has defended the Tesla OW rating all year, I did not see this 111% YTD rally coming (the S&P 500 is up 14% YTD, for context),” he said.

Along with Tesla, investors on Thursday were bidding higher other tech stocks that have led the 2023 gains such as Amazon, Apple and Nvidia.

Tesla was last up 0.2%.

— Brian Evans

Home sales unexpectedly increased in May in another positive sign for the housing market, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday.

Existing sales totaled 4.3 million for the month, representing a modest increase of 0.2% but better than the respective Dow Jones estimates for a 4.25 million and a decline of 0.7%.

Supply also increased, up to three months now for the highest level since November 2022.

—Jeff Cox

Kellogg shares’ inexpensive valuation and recent underperformance is likely due to falling investor sentiment following the announcement of a spin-off of the company’s snacking unit, according to Bernstein. But that hasn’t totally scared the firm off.

“The spin off creates uncertainty, but valuation is cereal-ously attractive,” analyst Alexia Howard titled in a note to clients in which she upgraded the stock to market perform from underperform.

The announcement also overshadowed the company’s improved earnings outlook, she said.

Still, it’s been a tough year for the stock — and Howard is aware the road ahead may still be tough. Kellogg has sat out of the 2023 market rally, down nearly 8% on the year. And Howard’s price target of $62 implies shares could slide another 5% over the next year from where the stock finished Wednesday, meaning there could be some more downside ahead.

— Alex Harring

Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman is among the central bankers who think interest rates will need to increase more to bring down inflation to acceptable levels.

The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, of which Bowman is a voter, decided last week to hold rates steady, but pointed to likely additional increases before the end of 2023.

“I supported the FOMC’s decision last week to hold the federal funds rate target range steady and to continue to reduce the Fed’s securities holdings; however, I believe that additional policy rate increases will be necessary to bring inflation down to our target over time,” Bowman said in remarks prepared for a speech in Cleveland.

Rates will need to move higher to push them into “a sufficiently restrictive stance” that will get inflation closer to the Fed’s 2% goal, she added.

—Jeff Cox

Morgan Stanley downgraded aluminum giant Alcoa on Wednesday, citing slower global growth and headwinds from a stronger dollar.

“Mining equities may continue their recent move higher on sentiment around China stimulus for a bit longer, but we don’t think the rally is sustainable,” Morgan Stanley analyst Carlos De Alba said.

Alcoa stock has slipped more than 22% so far this year.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Brian Evans

Stocks opened lower Thursday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 49 points, or 0.15%. The S&P 500 was down by 0.28%, and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.40% lower.

— Sarah Min

Deutsche Bank upgraded Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev stock on Thursday and said consumers will eventually return to the popular beer.

Shares have slipped more than 5% from the start of the year, as consumers have largely fled Bud Light over the company’s collaboration with influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Deutsche thinks the stock may have already overpriced in the downside risk.

“Our proprietary dbDIG survey data suggests that 24% of Bud Light consumers no longer buy the brand with another 18% buying less. However, 21% are buying more and 37% are buying the same amount,” analyst analyst Mitch Collett said.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Brian Evans