U.S. stocks traded higher this morning, with the Dow Jones index gaining more than 200 points on Thursday.

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.57% to 39,832.66 while the NASDAQ gained 1.58% to 16,974.28. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 1.14% to 5,437.24.

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Leading and Lagging SectorsInformation technology shares jumped by 2.2% on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, consumer staples fell by 1.1%.

Top Headline

PepsiCo, Inc. (NASDAQ:PEP) reported mixed first-quarter results and issued FY25 EPS guidance below estimates.

The food and beverage giant clocked a first-quarter FY25 sales decline of 1.8% year-on-year to $17.92 billion, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $17.77 billion. Adjusted EPS of $1.48 missed the consensus estimate of $1.49.

PepsiCo cut its adjusted EPS outlook to $7.92, much lower than the estimate of $8.27 and a low-single-digit increase in organic revenue. PepsiCo sees a core annual effective tax rate of approximately 20%.

Equities Trading UP                       

• Cantor Equity Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ:CEP) shares shot up 86% to $30.74.
• Shares of Xcel Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ:XELB)got a boost, surging 49% to $3.39.
• CERo Therapeutics Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CERO) shares were also up, gaining 41% to $1.1303 after the company announced the key clinical trial site location for its Phase 1 CER-1236 trial.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Greenlane Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:GNLN) shares dropped 93% to $0.0169.
• Shares of NuCana plc (NASDAQ:NCNA) were down 28% to $0.6229.
• Jiuzi Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:JZXN) was down, falling 29% to $5.24.

CommoditiesIn commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $62.55 while gold traded up 1.4% at $3,340.00.

Silver traded down 0.6% to $33.34 on Thursday, while copper fell 0.1% to $4.8425.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 gained 0.2%, Germany's DAX 40 gained 0.2% and France's CAC 40 gained 0.1%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index fell 0.5%, while London's FTSE 100 fell 0.1%.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Thursday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 surging 0.49%, China's Shanghai Composite gaining 0.03%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index falling 0.74% and India's BSE Sensex falling 0.39%.

Economics

• U.S. natural-gas stocks increased 88 billion cubic feet during the week ending April 18, compared to market estimates of 65 bcf gain.
• U.S. existing home sales fell by 5.6% from the previous month to an annualized rate of 4.02 million units in March.
• The Chicago Fed National Activity Index declined to -0.03 in March compared to a reading of +0.24 in February.
• U.S. initial jobless claims climbed by 6,000 from the previous week to 222,000 during the third week of April.
• U.S. durable goods orders gained by 9.2% month-over-month to $315.7 billion in March.

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