us stocks pared their early gains on thursday with the dow briefly turning red after optimism over teslas earnings results and a strongerthanexpected gdp report left investors in a better mood following wednesdays intraday selloff the dow jones industrial average finished wednesdays session up 10 points after falling roughly 400 points at the lows earlier in the session still all three averages remain solidly higher for the week with the techheavy nasdaq on track for its fourth straight weekly advance what would be its longest such streak since august stocks opened higher after a flurry of economic data including a fourth quarter gdp report that came in stronger than expected but investors focus was on the latest batch of earnings which helped to brighten the outlook for corporate performance following disappointing guidance from microsoft corp msft earlier in the week the economy grew at a robust 29 annual pace to close out 2022 according to the first estimate of fourth quarter gdp released thursday morning its the latest sign that the us economy is holding up well despite the federal reserves aggressive interestrate hikes market strategists said thursdays gdp report suggests that the economy is relatively strong even in the face of aggressive measures by the federal reserve to calm inflation said carol schleif chief investment officer at bmo family office in emailed commentary investors also cheered the latest data as evidence that the us economy might achieve a soft landing rather than slumping into a recession as signs of waning inflation might spare further aggressive interestrate hikes by the federal reserve this is a bit of a relief rally said christopher zook chairman and chief investment officer of caz investments while the data made headlines earnings released late wednesday and before the bell on thursday remained the markets primary concern zook said to wit investors celebrated a surge in tesla inc tsla shares after the firm released wellreceived results that showed record quarterly profits the labor market is also showing signs of strength despite more reports of layoffs in the tech finance and media spaces as the number of americans filing for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level since april investors also digested durable goods orders for december data from the commerce department showed us new home sales rose for the third month in december climbing 23 to a seasonallyadjusted rate of 616000 from a revised 602000 in the prior month disappointing guidance from technology behemoth microsoft had clobbered stocks on wednesday as traders worried it signaled not just difficulties for the sector but also broadly worsening economic conditions however stocks ended up rallying in the late morning and throughout the afternoon with the dow turning positive in the last hour of trading wednesday by the end of the session microsoft shares had recovered most of their 45 loss while the sp 500 closed almost exactly where it began according to data from factset as for the federal reserve the central bank is expected to slow the pace of interest rate hikes when it next week raises its policy rate by 25 basis points to a range of 45 to 475 more corporate earnings are expected thursday with results due out from mcdonalds mcd intel intc comcast cmcsa  visa v dow dow whirl pool whr western digital wdc and northrop grumman noc 