By Joe Woelfel and Nate Wolf

Stocks were mixed Thursday as the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge ran a touch hotter than expected.

The Nasdaq Composite surged as investors cheered strong revenue growth from Microsoft and Meta Platforms. But the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average swung into the red in afternoon trading.

These stocks were moving:

Microsoft was up 3.8% after the software company posted fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of $3.65 a share, better than Wall Street expectations of $3.37, as revenue of $76.4 billion rose 18% from a year earlier and beat analysts' models of $73.6 billion.

Cloud revenue rose 27% in the quarter from a year earlier to $46.7 billion. Revenue for the Azure public-cloud business grew by 39% year over year, up from last quarter's revenue growth of 33%.

Microsoft's market capitalization briefly surpassed $4 trillion, but fell below that milestone later in the day, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Meta Platforms jumped 12% after the parent company of Facebook and Instagram posted second-quarter earnings of $7.14 a share, smashing Wall Street forecasts of $5.88. Revenue jumped 22% to $47.5 billion and beat expectations. Daily users at Meta, ad impressions, and price-per-ad all exceeded Wall Street consensus. The company said it expects third-quarter revenue of $47.5 billion to $50.5 billion, higher than consensus of $46.3 billion.

Qualcomm reported fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.77 a share, beating analysts' estimates of $2.71, and said it expects fourth-quarter adjusted profit of $2.75 to $2.95 a share versus consensus of $2.82. Revenue rose 10% to $10.37 billion as sales in the company's equipment and services segment, which includes chips, rose around 11% to $8.89 billion. However, handsets revenue and automotive-sector revenue missed estimates. Shares of the maker of mobile processors and 5G wireless chipsets were down 8.1%.

CVS Health was down 1.6% even after the pharmacy and healthcare company posted solid second-quarter earnings and boosted its full-year outlook. CVS said it expects full-year adjusted earnings in the range of $6.30 to $6.40 a share, up from $6 to $6.20. The company also boosted its cash flow from operations guidance to at least $7.5 billion from roughly $7 billion.

EBay rose 19% after the online marketplace reported adjusted second-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates as gross merchandise volume rose 6% on an as-reported basis to $19.5 billion.

Chip designer Arm Holdings was down 14% after posting fiscal first-quarter adjusted earnings of 35 cents a share, in line with consensus estimates. Revenue of $1.05 billion also matched expectations. For its current second quarter, Arm expects revenue in a range from $1.01 billion to $1.11 billion, while analysts estimate $1.06 billion.

Roblox jumped 10% after the gaming platform said second-quarter bookings, the company's most closely watched metric, rose 51% from a year earlier and were well ahead of Wall Street consensus for 34% growth. Daily users rose 41% annually, and hours engaged climbed 58%. Roblox also issued guidance for the third quarter and year that were better than analysts' projections.

Norwegian Cruise Line gained 8.5% after reporting second-quarter earnings in line with expectations amid healthy demand for its trips. "Demand has rebounded across all three of our brands, with bookings now ahead of historical levels in recent months and continued strength in onboard spend," said CEO Harry Sommer in a statement.

CoreWeave was up 14% to $116.78 after Tyler Radke of Citi Research upgraded the stock to Buy from Neutral and maintained a price target of $160, citing the durability of demand for artificial-intelligence computing. Strength in Microsoft's Azure cloud-computing platform and large cloud announcements at Oracle have made Citi "incrementally more confident about the durability of AI demand and CRWV's position in the market," Radke wrote.

Lam Research fell 5.2% after the maker of semiconductor equipment reported fiscal fourth-quarter profit that rose from a year earlier as revenue jumped to $5.17 billion and beat forecasts. Adjusted earnings in the period of $1.33 a share were better than expectations of $1.20. Lam Research said it expects first-quarter earnings of $1.20 a share, plus or minus 10 cents, on revenue of $5.2 billion, plus or minus $300 million. Analysts forecast earnings of $1 a share and revenue of $4.65 billion.

Carvana's second-quarter earnings and revenue rose from a year earlier on higher car sales. The online used-car company said it sold a record 143,280 retail units in the quarter, up 41% from a year earlier. Shares jumped 16%.

Comcast rose 2.8%. The cable and entertainment company topped Wall Street's second-quarter earnings targets and said it lost fewer broadband subscribers than expected over the second quarter.

Align Technology sank 35% after second-quarter earnings missed analysts' estimates. The maker of Invisalign said it believes the second quarter "was impacted in part by U.S. tariff turmoil in and outside of the U.S.and less affordable financing options for orthodontic treatment, as well as for capital equipment purchases." The company also said it was seeing "patient hesitation toward elective procedures."

Earnings reports are expected after the closing bell Thursday from Apple, Amazon.com, MicroStrategy, Coinbase Global, Reddit, and First Solar.

Apple was down slightly ahead of the iPhone maker's fiscal third-quarter earnings report, while Amazon rose 1.6% ahead of the release of its second-quarter earnings.

Write to Joe Woelfel at joseph.woelfel@barrons.com

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July 31, 2025 14:22 ET (18:22 GMT)

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