The Dow Jones Industrials backed off 114.57 points to move into Thursday afternoon at 33,978.39. The major index was dragged by Merck shares after the pharmaceutical firm issued a weak outlook in its latest earnings results, despite beating estimates on the top and bottom lines.
The S&P 500 gained 56.84 points, or 1.4%, to 4,175.39.
The NASDAQ Composite spiked 339.4 points, or 2.9%, to 12,155.72.
The gains come ahead of a trio of Big Tech results after the bell in Apple, Amazon and Alphabet.
Meta surged more than 25% in its best day since 2013 after reporting a fourth-quarter beat on revenue and announcing a $40-billion stock buyback. That helped investors look past losses in the business unit overseeing the metaverse.
Other mega-cap tech stocks rose on the back of those results. Shares of Google-parent Alphabet were up more than 6%, while Amazon jumped more than 6%. Apple shares gained more than 3%.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury heightened, reducing yields to 3.37% from Wednesday’s 3.42%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices dipped 33 cents to $76.08 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices sagged $10.40 to $1,932.40 U.S. an ounce.