Tesla, IBM and Meta lead most of Wall Street higher

NEW YORK (AP) - Tesla, IBM and Meta Platforms helped lead most U.S. stocks higher on Thursday following a rush of profit reports from some of the country's most influential companies.

The S&P 500 rose 0.5%, as four out of every five stocks in the index climbed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 168 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.3%.

Meta Platforms helped push indexes higher after rising 1.6%. The company behind Facebook and Instagram delivered a better profit for the end of 2024 than analysts expected. Perhaps just as importantly for the market, it also talked up its artificial-intelligence efforts and said it will continue to invest in the space.

That calmed some of the worries created by a Chinese upstart, DeepSeek, when it said it developed a large language model capable of competing with the world's best, without having to use top-flight chips. That raised questions about whether all the investment expected for AI chips, data centers and electricity is really needed and sent a shock through markets at the start of the week.

The AI boom has been a primary reason for the U.S. stock market's run to repeated records in recent years, and the threat has hit stocks like Nvidia particularly hard. The chip company that's become the symbol of the AI frenzy spent most of Thursday lower, but it ended with a gain of 1% and was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.

Keeping indexes in check was Microsoft, which fell 6.2%. The Redmond, Washington-based software giant topped analysts' expectations for profit in the latest quarter, but the focus was instead on the slower-than-expected growth in its cloud computing business, which is a centerpiece of its AI efforts.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also continued to talk up AI following DeepSeek's disruption.

"DeepSeek had some real innovations," he said, and it is good to have efficiency gains and lower prices in AI development because it "means people can consume more and there'll be more apps written."

The pressure is on companies to keep delivering stronger profits. That would help them offset the downward force their stock prices have felt from climbing yields in the bond market recently. When bonds are paying more in interest, investors aren't as willing to pay high prices for stocks.

Treasury yields have been climbing amid fears inflation may remain stubbornly above the Federal Reserve's 2% target. A solid U.S. economy and worries about tariffs and other policies potentially coming from President Donald Trump have been some of the reasons behind the rise.

Treasury yields held relatively steady Thursday after a report indicated the U.S. economy grew at a solid pace at the end of 2024, but slightly slower than economists expected. The 10-year Treasury yield edged down to 4.52% from 4.53% late Wednesday.

The report showed a "Goldilocks" economy at the turn of the year, one that was neither too hot nor too cold, according to Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY. But he warned many uncertainties from Washington could change things, including what it does with income tax rates, tariffs and immigration.

Yields felt some downward pressure after the European Central Bank cut its main interest rate in hopes of boosting the region's stagnant economy.

In Washington, the Federal Reserve had also been cutting its main rate since September to help the U.S. economy, but it opted to hold steady on Wednesday. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said it likely needs to see more evidence of a slowdown either in inflation or in the U.S. job market to lower rates further.

On Wall Street, Tesla drove 2.9% higher even though Elon Musk's electric-vehicle company reported a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Musk asserted Tesla will offer unsupervised "full self-driving" technology to its customers as a paid service starting in Austin in June.

IBM rallied 13% after beating analysts' expectations for profit. CEO Arvind Krishna pointed to its growing book of generative AI business and said IBM expects its overall revenue to grow at least 5% this year.

On the losing end of Wall Street was UPS, which fell 14.1% despite topping analysts' expectations for profit. The package delivery company said its largest customer, Amazon, would lower its volume by more than 50% by the second half of 2026.

American Airlines fell 2.5% in its first trading following a crash involving an American Eagle flight and an Army helicopter just outside Washington. The cause of Wednesday night's midair collision is under investigation.

All told, the S&P 500 gained 31.86 points to 6,071.17. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 168.61 to 44,882.13, and the Nasdaq composite added 49.43 to 19,681.75.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe after Japan's Nikkei 225 added 0.3%. Several Asian markets remained closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.