On Thursday’s trading day, markets pushed along with moderate gains as the major averages close the month of February with another streak of gains. During the day, investors digested the sought-after PCE index for January, the Fed’s preferred gauge to measure inflation. As expected, core PCE rose 0.4% during January, an increase from December’s figure of 0.1%. Other economic news came from weekly jobless claims, beating estimates by 5,000 as the previous week totaled 215,000 initial jobless claims. For the main indices, the S&P 500 rose 0.54%, the NASDAQ Composite went up 84%, and the Dow Jones grew 0.04%.
Two individual companies to make headlines throughout midday trading were Salesforce and Snowflake. CRM software provider Salesforce saw its stock rise 2.93% after the firm released earnings and guidance that was able to beat expectations set out for the company. Deep in the red was cloud company Snowflake, plummeting 18.14% after posting disappointing product revenue forecasts and announcing the retirement of current CEO Frank Slootman.