Wall Street stocks opened slightly higher on Thursday as major indices looked set to continue on their February ascent.
As of 1530 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.19% at 31,497.48, while the S&P 500 was 0.22% firmer at 3,918.62 and the Nasdaq Composite started out the session 0.42% stronger at 14,031.20.
The Dow Jones opened 59.68 points higher on Thursday, adding to gains recorded in the previous session.
Corporate earnings were again in focus on Thursday, with Molson Coors reinstating full-year guidance despite witnessing a 7.7% decrease in net sales revenues and a $1.4bn net loss in the fourth quarter, while Kraft Heinz outperformed market expectations and announced the sale of its Planters peanuts business to Hormel Foods for $3.35bn in cash.
PepsiCo posted a quarterly earnings beat thanks to 8.8% revenue growth in the period, while cereal maker Kellogg was in the red after posting a profit and sales miss for the fourth quarter.
Still to come, Disney and Expedia will both report their latest quarterly earnings after the close.
Additionally, market participants mulled over this week’s jobless claims report from the Labor Department, which revealed roughly 793,0000 Americans filed a first-time unemployment claim last week, slightly lower than the prior week’s revised print of 812,000 but higher than the 760,000 expected by economists.
Still to come, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy report was slated for release at 1600 GMT and the 2022 US budget plan will be posted at 1900 GMT.
Also in focus were comments from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell who warned overnight that the US economy still faced many challenges in the labour market and stated monetary policy would need to stay “patiently accommodative” as a result, while ongoing stimulus talks in Washington were still drawing an amount of investors’ attention.
