U.S. stocks traded higher midway through trading, with the Dow Jones index gaining more than 150 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.37% to 46,190.85 while the NASDAQ rose 1.07% to 22,500.28. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.62% to 6,641.29.

Check This Out: This Target Analyst Begins Coverage On A Bearish Note; Here Are Top 5 Initiations For Thursday

Leading and Lagging SectorsInformation technology shares jumped by 0.8% on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, materials stocks fell by 0.7%.

Top Headline

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) reported worse-than-expected first-quarter financial results.

Darden Restaurants reported quarterly earnings of $1.97 per share which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $2.00 per share. The company reported quarterly sales of $3.004 billion which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $3.040 billion.

Equities Trading UP           

• 89bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ETNB) shares shot up 86% to $15.02 after the company announced an agreement to be acquired by Roche.
• Shares of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) got a boost, surging 27% to $31.59 after the company announced it will jointly develop AI infrastructure and personal computing products with NVIDIA, which will invest $5 billion in Intel’s stock at $23.28 per share.
• Aptevo Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:APVO) shares were also up, gaining 62% to $2.2863 following breakthrough clinical results demonstrating its drug's potential to redefine frontline AML treatment.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Replimune Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:REPL) shares dropped 39% to $3.4900 as the company evaluates FDA feedback to determine next steps. A path forward under the accelerated approval pathway has not been determined.
• Shares of BioCardia, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCDA) were down 29% to $1.0850 after the company announced the pricing of up to $12 million public offering and disclosed primary endpoint results of open label roll-in cohort of CardiAMP cell therapy in chronic myocardial ischemia trial.
• Lifeway Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:LWAY) was down, falling 21% to $26.72 after the company announced it is making a statement following Danone’s withdraw of its acquisition proposal.

CommoditiesIn commodity news, oil traded up 0.7% to $64.50 while gold traded down 1.2% at $3,674.30.

Silver traded down 0.4% to $41.995 on Thursday, while copper fell 0.8% to $4.5930.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 rose 0.79%, while Spain's IBEX 35 Index rose 0.17%. London's FTSE 100 rose 0.34%, Germany's DAX 40 gained 1.16% and France's CAC 40 climbed 0.95% during the session.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Thursday, with Japan's Nikkei gaining 1.15%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng falling 1.35%, China's Shanghai Composite declining 1.15% and India's BSE Sensex gaining 0.39%.

Economics

• U.S. initial jobless claims declined by 33,000 from the previous week to 231,000 in the second week of September, compared to market estimates of 240,000.
• The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index rose to +23.2 in September, recording its highest level since January, and compared to -0.3 in August.

Now Read This:

• Wall Street’s Most Accurate Analysts Spotlight On 3 Industrials Stocks With Over 5% Dividend Yields

Photo via Shutterstock