Thursday's Market Open: Stocks Mixed On 3Q Earnings; Tesla, Twitter Surge Higher

Investors digested earnings Thursday from Twitter and Microsoft as they awaited Amazon’s performance, sending the Nasdaq higher.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average took an initial bounce higher at the open but was 35 points down in early afternoon trading at 26,799. The S&P 500 was off 3 points to 3,007 while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 51 points to 8,171.

Twitter (TWTR) stock slid 19% after it reported third-quarter profits of $37 million or 5 cents a share on total revenue of $832 million, compared to $789 million or $1.02 a share on revenue of $758 million in the year ago quarter. The company said its costs and expenses rose 17% over last year as the company focused on long-term growth. “We’ll continue to prioritize our ad products along with health and our investments to drive ongoing growth in mDAU,” said Ned Segal, Twitter’s chief financial officer.

Tesla (TSLA) surged 15% in early trading on a surprise profit for the third quarter. Tesla reported net income of $311 million or $1.82 a share on total revenue of $6.8 billion, compared to $143 million or 80 cents a share on revenue of $6.3 billion in the third quarter of last year. Tesla said the results reflect the company’s concentration on controlling costs for Model 3 production and positioning itself for future growth.

Microsoft (MSFT) reported its results after the close of business Tuesday. The software giant rose a modest 1.6% after reporting net income of $10.7 billion or $1.38 a share on revenue of $15.7 billion, compared to $8.8 billion or $1.14 a share on revenue of $17.3 billion a year ago. Microsoft cautioned results in the future could be impacted by intense competition, especially in cloud-based services.

Amazon (AMZN) was not scheduled to release its results until after market close but it is expected to report $68.7 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $4.49.

The Labor Department reported initial jobless claims fell by 6,000 for the week ending Oct. 19 to 212,000 with the four-week average slipping to 215,000. The total number of people claiming unemployment benefits for the week ending Oct. 5 was nearly 1.4 million, down 21,584 from the previous week.

The highest percentage of claims were in Puerto Rico (2.0%), New Jersey (1.8%), Alaska (1.7%), California (1.5%), Connecticut (1.5%), Pennsylvania (1.4%), the Virgin Islands (1.3%), and West Virginia (1.3%).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending October 12 were in California (up 6,856), New York (up 3,147), Oklahoma (up 982), Pennsylvania (up 596), and Michigan (up 464), while the largest decreases were in Illinois (-922), North Carolina (-544), Arkansas (-385), Ohio (-255), and South Carolina (-202).

Global markets were mostly higher. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed up 0.87% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.55% while China’s Shanghai Composite dipped 0.02%. Australia’s S&P/ASX added 0.31%.

In Europe, London’s FTSE closed up 0.93% higher while the German DAX added 0.58% and the French CAC was up 0.55%. The Stoxx Europe 600 posted a 0.59% gain.

The British pound was off 0.46% to $1.2853 while the euro lost 0.22% to $1.1105 and the dollar index inched up 0.2%.

Oil futures were higher. Crude oil added 0.64% to $56.33 while Brent crude was up 0.88% to $61.71. Gold and silver futures also were higher.