To The Moon

Wall Street's main indexes ended higher on Thursday as investors assessed the latest batch of economic data and as a surge in Treasury yields stalled ahead of a key inflation report.

Investors were also watching developments in Washington to see whether U.S. lawmakers could avert a government shutdown.

Market Snapshot

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 116.07 points, or 0.35%, to 33,666.34, the S&P 500 gained 25.19 points, or 0.59%, to 4,299.70 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 108.43 points, or 0.83%, to 13,201.28.

Market Movers

Micron — The chipmaker's shares fell 4.4% Thursday on the back of a weaker-than-expected earnings forecast. Micron estimates a fiscal first-quarter loss of $1.07 per share, on a non-GAAP basis, while analysts polled by LSEG, formerly known Refinitiv, expected a loss of 95 cents. For the fiscal fourth quarter, the company posted a narrower-than-expected loss as well as revenue that topped expectations. 

GameStop — The video game retailer appointed executive chairman and major investor Ryan Cohen to chief executive early Thursday. GME stock reversed lower 1.8% Thursday after spiking in premarket trade.

Duolingo — Shares gained 3.2%. UBS initiated coverage of Duolingo on Wednesday with a buy rating, saying it's a "best-in-class brand."

CarMax — The used car retailer fell 13.4% as fiscal second-quarter earnings fell from a year ago on weakening demand for used cars. The company said it earned 75 cents per share on revenue of $7.07 billion. CarMax said it bought 14.9% fewer vehicles from consumers and dealers from the previous year as steep market depreciation hurt volume. 

Workday — The cloud services company tumbled 8.5% after it lowered its long-term subscription growth target to a range of 17% to 19%, compared to its previous target of 20%.

Peloton — Shares jumped 5.4% on Thursday after Peloton and Lululemon announced a five-year strategic partnership on Wednesday. According to the deal, Peloton's content will be available on Lululemon's exercise app and Lululemon, in turn, will become Peloton's primary athletic apparel partner.

DigitalBridge — Shares of the digital infrastructure company jumped 4.8% after JPMorgan upgraded the company to overweight from neutral. The firm said DigitalBridge is largely finished with the transformation of its business.

Concentrix — Shares rose 6.8% after the company's third-quarter earnings report missed on both the top and bottom lines. Concentrix posted adjusted earnings of $2.71 per share on revenue of $1.63 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet had estimated Concentrix would earn $2.85 per share and revenue of $1.64 billion. The company's fourth-quarter earnings forecast of $3.03 to $3.15 per share also fell below analysts' forecasts of $3.33 per share, according to FactSet.

Market News

Nike Jumps as Inventory Glut Eases, Profit Beats Estimates

Nike Inc. shares rose 7.5% in late trading after the sportswear giant reported a drop in its stockpile of inventory — a sign it’s making progress in moving out older merchandise for newer, more-profitable items.

Inventory fell 10% from a year earlier to $8.7 billion, which was a bigger decline than analysts expected, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue of $12.9 billion for the quarter ended Aug. 31 was just short of Wall Street’s average estimate, while gross margin, a key gauge of profitability, was higher than expected.

Microsoft Discussed Selling Bing to Apple as Google Replacement

Microsoft Corp. discussed selling its Bing search engine to Apple Inc. around 2020, a deal that would have replaced Google as the default option on the iPhone maker’s devices, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Executives from Microsoft met with Apple’s services chief, Eddy Cue, who brokered the current search engine relationship with Alphabet Inc.’s Google, to discuss the possibility of acquiring Bing, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation was confidential. The talks were exploratory and never reached an advanced stage, they said.

Nvidia’s French Offices Raided in Cloud-Computing Antitrust Inquiry

France’s competition authority raided Nvidia’s local offices this week on suspicion the company engaged in anticompetitive practices, the first significant regulatory scrutiny the company has faced since its rise to bethe paramount supplierof artificial intelligence chips.

The French competition authority, which disclosed the dawn raid on Wednesday, didn’t say what practices it was investigating or which company it had targeted, beyond saying it was in the “graphics cards sector.” But people familiar with the raid said the operation had targeted Nvidia, which is the world’s largest maker of chips used both for artificial intelligence and for computer graphics.