Optimistic sentiment continued to drive Wall Street on Thursday, with all major indices closing higher.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.38 percent, the S&P 500 grew 0.53 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite was up by 0.25 percent.
Ten companies posted notable gains, largely fueled by strong earnings results for the fourth quarter and full-year 2024.
To come up with Thursday’s top gainers, we considered only the stocks with at least $2 billion in market capitalization and $5 million in daily trading volume.
The New York Stock Exchange building. Photo by Дмитрий Трепольский on Pexels
10. GE Vernova Inc. (NYSE:GEV)
Energy equipment manufacturer GE Vernova saw its share prices grow by 8.42 percent on Thursday to close at $382.94 apiece as investors took heart from news that it would pour in $600 million in its US operations over the next two years.
The latest investment represents the first phase of its $9-billion expansion program for the production of gas turbines, grid solutions, nuclear operations, onshore wind facilities, electrification, and energy research.
Of the $600 million, GE Vernova said $300 million will be used for producing gas turbines; $20 million for the production of switchgear, instrument transformer, and capacitor production; $50 million to boost automation and enhance the quality of its North Carolina factory; $100 million for facility upgrades in North Dakota, New York, Florida, and Texas; $10 million for a new manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania; and $100 million in its advanced research center in New York.
The initial investment alone is expected to create 1,500 new jobs.
9. Immunitybio Inc. (NASDAQ:IBRX)
Shares of Immunitybio rose 9.81 percent on Thursday to finish at $3.47 apiece as investor sentiment was buoyed by news that it sealed a collaboration and supply partnership with multinational oncology firm BeiGene.
The partnership involves the conduct of a confirmatory randomized Phase 3 clinical trial combining BeiGene’s tislelizumab and ImmunityBio’s Anktiva, which aims to confirm the efficacy and safety of a combination ANKTIVA plus CPI therapy and provide evidence of the potential for the two immunotherapeutic agents to improve overall survival in patients with advanced or metastatic NSCLC who have acquired resistance to immune CPI therapy.
The primary endpoint of the study is overall survival, with secondary endpoints including disease control rate, progression-free survival, objective response rate, and safety.
8. Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd. (NASDAQ:CRDO)
Credo Technology jumped by 9.88 percent on Thursday to end at $64.60 per share as investors gobbled up shares amid various bullish reports in the company.
Over the past six months alone, Credo Technology was able to grow its value by nearly 150 percent. Its current valuation also marked a 207.91 percent increase over the past year.
Earlier this month, Mizuho Financial analyst Vijay Rakesh raised his price target for Credo Technology by 21 percent to $85 from $70 previously and kept an “outperform” rating on the company.
According to Rakesh, he sees continued strength in artificial intelligence, custom silicon, and connectivity, the benefits of which will create a ripple effect in the company. He added that AI will benefit memory and storage.
Credo Technology is a company engaged in providing secure, high-speed connectivity solutions that deliver improved power and cost efficiency as data rates and corresponding bandwidth requirements increase exponentially throughout the data infrastructure market.
7. Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS)
Casino and resort operator Las Vegas Sands saw its share prices increase by 11.08 percent on Thursday to finish at $48.24 each after posting impressive revenue growth in full-year 2024 coupled with an optimistic outlook for all businesses this year.
During Las Vegas Sands’ fourth quarter earnings call, Chief Executive Officer Robert Goldstein said that the company achieved revenues of $11.3 billion last year, of which $7.1 billion came from its Macau operations.
With the strong growth, the company is expecting even better operations this year, with gaming revenues targeted to jump to $30 billion.
“We believe the Chinese economy will grow, and the Macau market will grow as well,” Goldstein said.
Las Vegas Sands spent a total of $547 million in the fourth quarter of the year, of which $345 million was allocated for its Macau operations.
6. Tempus AI Inc. (NASDAQ:TEM)
Shares of Tempus AI surged by 12.65 percent to finish Thursday’s trading at $57.19 apiece despite the lack of clear catalysts that may have buoyed trading in the company.
Last week, Tempus AI recently unveiled what it called “olivia,” an AI-driven health concierge app designed to assist patients in managing their health.
Olivia empowers patients by bringing their health-related data into one central location and leveraging advanced AI to provide actionable insights. It is also designed to address two core objectives centralizing patients’ health data and making that data accessible and actionable through AI.
Tempus AI Inc. said the app enables patients to bring their health information into one unified platform. They can also connect directly to over 1,000 health systems through electronic health record (EHR) integration, sync data from health devices to track daily metrics, or manually upload health records.
5. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM)
International Business Machines saw a 12.96-percent jump in its share prices on Thursday to end at $258.27 each as investors took heart from the company’s strong earnings performance last year coupled with an optimistic outlook for 2025.
In its latest earnings report, International Business Machines said revenues rose by 1 percent to $17.6 billion, with growth owed to a 10 percent growth in revenues from its software segment.
For the fourth quarter alone, earnings per share stood at $3.92, better than the $3.80 as projected by analysts.
For 2025, International Business Machines said it targets to grow its revenues by at least 5 percent and a free cash flow of $13.5 billion. The expansion rate would be above the 3 percent uptick logged in 2024, which analysts noted was a sign of IBM’s confidence in its AI and cloud strategy.
4. Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)
Electronics manufacturer Celestica Inc. grew its share prices by 13.59 percent on Thursday to end at $114.15 each as investor sentiment was boosted by better-than-expected earnings last year coupled with an improved outlook for 2025.
In a statement released late Wednesday, Celestica said revenues for the fourth quarter of the year jumped by 19 percent to $2.55 billion, topping analyst expectations of $2.49 billion.
Earnings per share during the same period surged to $1.29 from 77 cents year-on-year.
Looking ahead, Celestica said it raised its full-year outlook as a reflection of its strengthening demand in Connectivity and Clouds Solutions (CCS) segment.
“We now anticipate revenue of $10.7 billion, an increase from our previous outlook of $10.4 billion, and non-GAAP adjusted EPS of $4.75, up from our previous outlook of $4.42,” Celestica said.
“Overall, the current demand environment for data center hardware is robust, as evidenced by recent customer forecasts as well as new AI program awards over the last 90 days, including our second and third 1.6T program wins. As such, we believe the positive momentum we are experiencing will continue beyond this year, and into 2026.”
3. Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST)
Vistra Corp.’s share prices increased by 13.57 percent on Thursday to finish at $176.30 each as investors resorted to bargain-hunting after plunging by 30 percent earlier this week amid news that China-based DeepSeek, a new competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, successfully trained its own models like OpenAI and Google for only $5 million, or a fraction of the US companies’ cost in developing their models.
The news dragged down sentiment among Vistra investors over fears that the huge technology companies developing Artificial Intelligence may not need as much power as previously anticipated.
However, Thursday’s bullish sentiment was buoyed by analyst statements that DeepSeek was not built for only $5 million, with a report from Bernstein saying that claims of building an AI system comparable to OpenAI for just $5 million are not true.
According to the report, DeepSeek’s released amount may only consider the computational resources, leaving out the significant costs related to research, experimentation, and other developmental expenses.
2. Flagstar Financial Inc. (NYSE:FLG)
Flagstar Financial, owner of Flagstar Bank, increased its share prices by 15.21 percent on Thursday to close at $11.06 apiece after improving its earnings performance in the fourth quarter of the year.
While still operating at a loss, Flagstar was able to narrow its net loss by 57 percent to $0.34 loss per share as compared with the $0.79 loss per share registered in the third quarter last year.
The current valuation also marked a significant improvement from the $11.27 loss per share posted in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Meanwhile, revenues were higher at $625 million versus analyst expectations of $558.6 million.
Flagstar said it targets to swing to profitability by 2026 with a $600 million expense reduction plan. To support the plan, the company said it would sell its non-core mortgage business and move to higher-margin businesses.
1. Oklo Inc. (NYSE:OKLO)
Oklo Inc. saw its share prices surge by 18.73 percent on Thursday to finish at $41.91 each as investors resumed hunting for stocks particularly those that would benefit from the booming AI.
Earlier this week, stocks in the technology and power sectors took a beating following news that China-based DeepSeek, a new competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, trained its model for only a fraction of US AI providers’ cost to train theirs. The negative sentiment dribbled down to nuclear companies over fears that developing and enhancing AI may not need as much power as previously anticipated.
However, Thursday’s bullish sentiment was buoyed by analyst statements that DeepSeek was not built for only $5 million, with a report from Bernstein saying that claims of building an AI system comparable to OpenAI for just $5 million are “not true.”
According to the report, the total amount may have only considered the computational resources, leaving out the significant costs related to research, experimentation, and other developmental expenses.
While we acknowledge the potential of OKLO as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than OKLO but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap.
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