The three major averages finished Thursday's session with gains.

The S&P 500 rose 0.33% to end at 7,744.06, while the Nasdaq Composite gained just 0.08% to 26,713.03. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 556.21 points, or 1.08%, to 52,177.69.

— Sean Conlon

Analysts at Barclays say they're seeing signs that a SpaceX-Tesla merger is something that executives are thinking about, analysts with Barclays said Wednesday.

"We believe recent management comments indicate they see key benefits of a combination," analyst Dan Levy wrote to clients in a Wednesday note, though he didn't get into the details.

Vertical integration of production pipelines for two the companies, in addition to the elimination of overhead redundancies, would boost value added, Levy said. He put the Texas-based Terafab data center, which is already structured as a joint venture, at the center of his estimation.

"We see Terafab as a key driver of the potential combination as CEO Elon Musk strongly believes that Terafab will be required to support TSLA/SPCX compute needs," he wrote.

— Tobias Burns

Performance is broadening out within the S&P 500.

More than half of S&P 500 stocks are trading above their 200-day moving averages, an improvement from less than 40% at the end of September when gains were more concentrated, likely within tech stocks.

Some of the names moving above their 200-day moving averages for the first time in more than a month were Walmart (WMT), Kroger (KR), HCA Healthcare (HCA) and United Health Services (UHS).

— Nick Wells and Tobias Burns

CoreWeave stock broke into black in Thursday afternoon, trading up 3.5% just as of 2:53 p.m., after being down as much as 9.5% in morning trading.

The uptick proved a Wednesday Deutsche Bank note to be prescient. Analyst Brad Zelnick said that Wednesday's dislocation was "presenting buying opportunity."

"If this is purely about broader AI financing concerns, we'd argue CoreWeave continues to scale rather responsibly," he wrote to clients. "Near-term liquidity is in decent shape."

The stock got hit with a combination blow on Wednesday, with higher-than-expected inflation data initially pushing up bond yields, industrial titans fretting about the stock online, and some warnings from analysts about its sector.

— Tobias Burns

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) is lower for an eighth straight trading day, its first eight-day slide since September 2015; it fell for nine sessions in May 2006. The ETF has fallen more than 15% over that stretch. The fund was last down around 2%.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) is also down an eighth straight day, making it the longest slide since May 2006 when it fell for nine straight sessions.

— Sarah Min and Nick Wells

More than half of S&P 500 constituents are trading above their 200-day moving averages, a notable improvement from late September when that figure was around 40%.

The shift suggests that participation in the market's advance is broadening beyond recent high flyers of the AI trade. The 200-day moving average is a widely watched indicator of a stocks' long-term trend and a shift above that level can show improving momentum.

Among the names moving above their 200-day moving averages for the first time in a month are Walmart, Kroger, HCA Healthcare and Universal Health Services.

— Nick Wells

Wall Street firm Baird upgraded Bank of America to outperform from neutral Thursday, while maintaining its $62 price target, implying a 21% upside from its Wednesday close of $51.

The higher rerating on the bank comes despite it reporting a soft quarter before the open Thursday.

Bank of America delivered an earnings per share miss and weak noninterest income along with higher expenses on Wednesday, sending shares lower.

Baird called the sell-off "overdone" and sees the stock's weakness as a buying opportunity. That stems from the firm's view that the bank's 2027 net interest income outlook is an "incremental positive" coupled with the stock's attractive valuation.

— Paulina Likos

Gil Luria, analyst at DA Davidson, said Anthropic's revenue for the third quarter was "not what anyone wanted to see."

Sources told CNBC that the AI giant's revenue grew to $16.8 billion in the third quarter, up from its second-quarter revenue of $11.6 billion. But, that growth in the third quarter was slower than its rise in the previous one, as first-quarter revenue for the company was just $4.7 billion. 

Luria said, though, that there was good news as the Financial Times reported that Antrhopic had positive cash flow in the third quarter, pushing back on the narrative that the AI labs can't get to profitability. But he added that investors shouldn't be looking at a single company to judge the performance of the sector, and rather focus on corporate and consumer spending on the technology. 

"We expect the overall market for AI spend to continue on a steep path as it diversifies away from Anthropic and OpenAI," he wrote in a Thursday note. "These two will see their market get cut from providing all-encompassing AI services to only providing frontier tokens for mission critical cost-insensitive applications… This overall demand should support more AI compute demand and more data center construction, even if it doesn't meet the most outlandish extrapolations."

— Davis Giangiulio

Crocs shares spiked almost 6% on Thursday after Barclays upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight. Analyst Adrienne Yih also lifted the price target 18% to $139 from $118, saying that there is now greater visibility into the company's multiyear growth story.

CNBC's Justin Zacks recently called out the opportunity in Crocs stock, saying that its product innovation has led to more stable sales growth and it has a huge opportunity to grow in international markets like China. He also expects a turnaround at its HeyDude brand could be a catalyst for the stock.

Yih cited these reasons and added that the company was showing direct-to-consumer strength, promotional discipline, and an inflection in its inventory management.

"Importantly, many of the company's strongest-performing products are newer franchises outside of the traditional Classic Clog, giving us greater confidence that growth is becoming broader and more durable," Yih wrote.

— Christina Cheddar Berk

Tech is getting all the headlines this week — and rightfully so — but other parts of the stock market are faring even worse.

The Russell 2000, which tracks the performance of small-cap stocks, fell into correction territory on Wednesday, ending the day down 11% from an Aug. 14 record close. For the week, the benchmark is down 2.8%, slightly underperforming the Nasdaq Composite's 2.5% decline.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read about what factors are weighing on small caps here.

— Fred Imbert

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite began Thursday's session in negative territory.

The broad market index lost 0.5% shortly after the opening bell, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 1.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, bucked the trend with a rise of 269 points, or 0.5%.

— Sean Conlon

The producer price index, a gauge of wholesale inflation, rose 6.3% in September on a year-over-year basis. That's well above a Dow Jones consensus of 5.5% and marked the largest 12-month advance for PPI since December 2022. Month over month, PPI rose 1.3% last month, topping a 0.6% estimate.

The report comes a day after the BLS released hotter-than-expected U.S. consumer price index data.

— Fred Imbert

Investors on Thursday morning will get another look at the inflation picture with the release of the September reading for the producer price index.

On a monthly basis, economists polled by Dow Jones are expecting the index to show a 0.6% increase, while the year-over-year figure is expected to come in at 5.5%.

Excluding food and energy, core PPI is anticipated to rise 0.3% month over month.

The data comes a day after September's consumer price index reading, which showed slightly hotter-than-expected figures for the annual rate of headline inflation as well as core CPI on a monthly and yearly basis.

— Sean Conlon

Check out the companies making the biggest moves premarket:

• CoreWeave — Shares of the cloud infrastructure technology company fell for a second day, losing 6% on Thursday as investors worry that CoreWeave, along with other technology companies, are borrowing too much for an artificial intelligence build-out.
• Rocket Lab — The space company dropped nearly 10% after it delayed the launch of its Neutron rocket to 2027.
• Walmart — The retailer popped more than 2% after Deutsche Bank upgraded the stock to buy from hold, citing a positive outlook for 2027. The bank expects incremental margins to improve and noted current inflation levels could help the company attract consumers.

Read the full list here.

— Ananya Chetia

Industrial production in the euro zone fell 1.1% year-on-year during August, outweighing the 0.1% dip expected by analysts in a Reuters poll.

Industrial output was down 0.5% month-by-month, according to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, lagging analyst forecasts of a flat print.

"For the third month in a row, industrial production declined in the eurozone," said Bert Colijn, Chief Economist, Netherlands at ING.

"While manufacturers remain upbeat about output, production data paints a less rosy picture. Industry may not be immune to higher energy prices and global uncertainty after all."

— Hugh Leask

Shares in Ericsson surged in morning trade after the Swedish multinational telecoms mainstay reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings.

Net sales for the three months ended Sept. 30 reached 59.5 billion Swedish krona ($5.91 billion), a 6% rise year-on-year and a 13% increase from the previous quarter.

Ericsson's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and amortization were 10.1 billion Swedish krona, beating consensus forecasts of 7.87 billion.

The company moved to the top of Europe's benchmark Stoxx 600, with its shares up about 7.5% by 8:55 a.m. in London (3:55 a.m. E.T.).

In a statement, Per Narvinger, president and CEO, said the results come amid a challenging environment, adding that an overhaul of the company's operating structure "will strengthen our customer focus and drive further efficiencies over time."

— Hugh Leask

Asia-Pacific markets fell Thursday, with Korean stocks leading declines.

South Korea's Kospi plunged 7.57% to 5,554.22, dragged by chip heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, which fell more than 11% and nearly 10%, respectively. The small-cap Kosdaq lost 7.65% to end the trading day at 760.82.

Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 4.9% to 64,425.95, while the Topix fell 2.38% to 3,999.34.

The CSI 300 fell 1.23% to 4,166.01, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down more than 1% in its last hour of trading.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 ended flat at 8,719.7.

— Lee Ying Shan

Europe's stock markets were choppy in early trade, with regional sectors and major bourses mixed.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 was 0.43% lower shortly after 8:05 a.m. in London (3:05 a.m. E.T.)

Technology stocks led losses, tumbling 3.32%, followed closely by basic resources, which dropped 3.27%. Industrial goods were down 1.94%. In contrast, telecoms advanced 1.78%, leading gains, with household goods companies rising 1.58%.

The continent's main bourses were mixed. In London, the U.K. FTSE 100 added 0.19%, while in Paris, the CAC 40 was hovering just above the flatline. Germany's DAX was down 0.48% in Frankfurt, with the Italian FTSE MIB up 0.30%.

— Hugh Leask

The U.K. economy grew by a better-than-expected 0.1% in the month to August, beating the 0.1% fall that had been forecast by economists polled by Reuters.  

Growth in production offset weak output in services and construction.

The British pound jumped 0.4% against the U.S. dollar following the release. Yields U.K. government bonds — known as gilts — fell across the curve.

— Chloe Taylor

Stoxx 50 futures were 0.9% lower as European stock markets were expected to start Thursday's session in the red.

In the U.K., FTSE 100 futures were almost 0.1% lower, while in France, the CAC 40 was down 0.48%. Germany's DAX was seen opening some 0.39% in the red, with the Italian FTSE MIB off by 0.51%.

— Hugh Leask

European chipmakers followed their Asian counterparts into the red ahead of Thursday's market open.

Dutch semiconductor giant ASML was down 1.52% in premarket trading, while Infineon Technologies shed 2.32%. Germany's Aixtron and SUSS MicroTec were also down 2.8% and 3.5%, respectively.

The moves follow a sharp retreat among Asian chipmakers on Thursday, which in turn tracked losses on Wall Street during the previous session amid rising concerns over AI financing and further Federal Reserve rate hikes.

— Hugh Leask

Oil fell Thursday as traders assessed potential supply disruptions following attacks on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, while digesting the International Energy Agency's latest monthly report on the outlook of the oil market.

Futures for international benchmark Brent crude for December delivery dropped 1.66% to $104.31 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures for November fell 1.09% to $94.05 per barrel.

A Singapore registered ship was sunk in the critical Strait of Hormuz, which raised worries of a prolonged Mideast conflict. "Such attacks are unprovoked, unjustifiable and a breach of international law," the Singapore maritime authority said in a statement Wednesday.

Iran, meanwhile, has said it is "counting the moments" until it can start striking U.S. warships.

The International Energy Agency in its oil report for October out Wednesday cautioned that constraints on diesel markets could continue well into the next year, with fresh attacks on Saudi Arabia threatening to derail a recovery in oil supply.

— Justina Lee

A sell-off in global technology hardware stocks deepened Thursday, with Asian chipmakers tracking Wall Street losses as concerns over further Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, financing of artificial intelligence investments weigh on sentiment.

South Korean chip giant SK Hynix plunged over 10%, while rival Samsung Electronics fell 7.1%. Other South Korean chip-related stocks also came under pressure. LG Innotek sank 8.1%, Seoul Semiconductor shed 7.7% and Samsung SDI declined 6.8%.

In Japan, technology investment giant SoftBank Group tumbled 7.9%. Semiconductor testing equipment maker Advantest dropped 6.9%, while chipmaking equipment supplier Tokyo Electron lost 5.4%. Renesas Electronics declined 5.4%.

— Lee Ying Shan

Asia-Pacific markets fell Thursday, with Korean stocks leading declines.

South Korea's Kospi declined 6.1% at the open, while the small-cap Kosdaq Index fell 5.7%. Index heavy weights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics lost 9% and 7%, respectively.

Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 3.2%, while the Topix fell 1.8%.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.71%.

— Lee Ying Shan

Asia-Pacific markets were set to fall Thursday, tracking losses on Wall Street as hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation data fuels concerns that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates more aggressively.

Escalating attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz have also dented sentiment, as they add to uncertainty around the Middle East conflict, clouding the outlook for energy supplies.

Futures for Hong Kong's Hang Seng index stood at 24,074, lower than the index's last close of 24,314.17.

Japan's Nikkei 225 was also set to fall at open, with its Chicago and Osaka futures contracts last at 66,365 and 66,480, respectively, compared with the index's previous close of 67,744.29.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.85% in its first hour of trade.

— Lee Ying Shan

Rocket Lab shares slipped in extended trading after the company pushed back the launch date of its Neutron rocket to 2027.

Shares last traded lower by about 7%.

The company recently identified an issue with the manufacturing process on one of its propellant domes, according to a Rocket Lab video that shared details on the launch delay.

Considering the length of time it would take to build a new dome, as well as to investigate and resolve the  manufacturing issue, the company pushed Neutron's first launch date into the new year, according to the video.

— Darla Mercado

CoreWeave shares were lower by 0.6% after the bell following a sharp pullback for the company's stock and bonds on fears some tech companies are borrowing too much for AI.

The neocloud name nosedived 15.5%, while yields on its debt jumped. CEO Mike Intrator dismissed the market moves in a memo obtained by CNBC.

"When you are building a new type of technology company there will be periods of time when the market misunderstands and acts irrationally," he wrote. "We are confident in our backlog which more than supports all of our debt obligations."

Read more here.

— Michelle Fox

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose just 6 points. S&P 500 futures fell marginally along with Nasdaq-100 futures.

— Fred Imbert