U.S. stocks shrugged off further drops in oil prices and disappointing earnings reports to move higher Thursday afternoon.
Alibaba, Ford and Hershey are among the big names reporting today. Both Alibaba and Ford’s reports fell short of expectations, while McDonald’s saw some gains after announcing they’d be hiring a new CEO by March 1.
Investors are also hoping for a recovery—or at least some stabilization—in oil prices. Wednesday saw a 4% drop, and on Thursday morning prices fell below $44 a barrel for the first time in six years.
Optimism surrounded jobless claims, which dropped almost 15% in the past week. One expert pointed out that those numbers were skewed due to the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.
But after losing almost 500 points from the Dow this week, investors were happy to grab ahold of any good news.
Here are the final numbers from Thursday on Wall Street:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 17,416.97 (+225.48)
NASDAQ: 4,683.41 (+45.41)
S&P 500: 2,021.26 (+19.10)
