NEW YORK, May 28 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks ended higher on Thursday, as a tentative diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East helped Wall Street recover from early-session losses.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.05 percent to 50,668.97. The S&P 500 added 0.58 percent to 7,563.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased by 0.91 percent to 26,917.47.
Six of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in the red, with utilities and consumer staples leading the laggards by dropping 1.13 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, health and technology led the gainers by rising 1.41 percent and 1.34 percent, respectively.
Market sentiment experienced a sharp intraday reversal following a report by Axios that U.S. and Iranian negotiators had reached a milestone 60-day memorandum of understanding aimed at ending regional hostilities. Although the peace framework still requires formal authorization from U.S. President Donald Trump, the diplomatic progress significantly eased geopolitical anxieties that had spiked earlier in the day following a second consecutive wave of military exchanges near the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil prices were mixed after the news. The West Texas Intermediate for July delivery went up 22 cents, or 0.25 percent, to settle at 88.9 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for July delivery lost 57 cents, or 0.62 percent, to settle at 93.71 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
The broader technology sector received a boost from strong corporate earnings updates. Snowflake stole the spotlight, with its shares skyrocketing nearly 36.5 percent to erase its year-to-date losses. The cloud data giant delivered a strong revenue beat and significantly raised its fiscal 2027 guidance, driven by accelerating adoption of its data tools. The company announced a landmark five-year, 6-billion-dollar infrastructure commitment with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to anchor enterprise agentic AI applications using AWS's Graviton processors and GPU instances.
The positive momentum lifted technology peers Marvell Technology and HP, both of which advanced after posting solid quarterly figures showcasing robust enterprise hardware demand.
Economic data provided a mixed background for the day's trading. GDP expanded at an annualized rate of 1.6 percent in the first quarter, according to a revised reading from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The figure represents a sharp downgrade from the initial 2 percent estimate, missing market consensus expectations that the earlier estimate would hold.
The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, which serves as the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge, increased by a seasonally adjusted 0.4 percent in April. This puts the 12-month inflation rate at 3.8 percent, the BEA reported.
When excluding volatile food and energy costs, the core PCE price index rose 0.2 percent for the month and 3.3 percent annually, coming in slightly below economists' 0.3 percent monthly estimate.
Separately, the Department of Labor reported that U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ended May 23 edged up to 215,000, rising from the previous week's revised level of 210,000.
