U.S. stock futures were trading in a narrow range Thursday after major indices posted solid gains, as investors digested a mixed earnings wave and awaited Friday's August employment report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 624.16 points, or 1.18%, to 53,686.11, while the S&P 500 gained 81.11 points, or 1.06%, to 7,747.71. The Nasdaq Composite added 366.23 points, or 1.40%, to close at 26,584.06. On the New York Stock Exchange, advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.98-to-1 ratio, with 284 new highs versus 186 new lows. The Nasdaq saw 2,957 stocks rise against 1,771 that fell. Total volume came in at 15.25 billion shares, slightly above the 20-day average of 15.09 billion.
Nvidia rose 1.8% after announcing it would acquire developer platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, a move aimed at bolstering its artificial-intelligence capabilities against rivals including OpenAI and Anthropic. Software stocks were broadly higher: ServiceNow, Salesforce and Adobe gained between 2.1% and 6.5%. Snowflake jumped 16.6% after forecasting strong annual revenue. Robinhood Markets surged 16.6%.
In contrast, Broadcom dropped 2.7% after issuing a fourth-quarter revenue forecast that came in below expectations.
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller provided further fodder for market optimism. Speaking to Reuters, he said he would be inclined to let interest rates stand if incoming data confirms inflation is easing, though he added he would support a rate hike if price pressures persist. CME FedWatch data showed the market-implied probability of a rate increase at the September meeting fell to 50.4% from 63.2% the previous day.
Bill Northey, senior investment director at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Billings, Montana, said Waller's commentary was providing a broad lift for markets. He noted that behind the headline indices, earnings results were driving divergence across sectors — particularly between semiconductors and software, where some companies were clearing a lower bar for positive reactions.
On Friday, the Labor Department will release the August employment report. Economists expect the economy to have added 56,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.1%.
