U.S. stocks turned higher midway through trading, with the Dow Jones index gaining around 50 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.12% to 43,347.41 while the NASDAQ rose 0.03% to 20,037.71. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.05% to 6,042.96.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares rose by just 0.1% on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, information technology shares dipped by 0.4%.

Top Headline

U.S. initial jobless claims fell by 1,000 from the previous week to a reading of 219,000 during the second week of December, compared to market estimates of 224,000.

Equities Trading UP

SEALSQ Corp ( LAES ) shares shot up 31% to $7.16. On Thursday, SEALSQ ( LAES ) announced the launch of SEALQUANTUM.com Lab, a research hub designed to help businesses transition to quantum-safe encryption

Shares of SciSparc Ltd. ( SPRC ) got a boost, surging 155% to $0.5600 after the company announced it received its first shipment of vehicles manufactured by Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group.

Zoomcar Holdings, Inc. ( ZCAR ) shares were also up, gaining 90% to $2.71 after it reported a 43% year-on-year increase in November bookings.

Equities Trading DOWN

Neuphoria Therapeutics Inc. ( NEUP ) shares dropped 38% to $4.10.

Shares of Baosheng Media Group Holdings Limited ( BAOS ) were down 34% to $4.66.

SaverOne 2014 Ltd ( SVRE ) was down, falling 30% to $1.0501.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.2% to $70.25 while gold traded up 0.6% at $2,651.20.

Silver traded up 0.6% to $30.450 on Thursday, while copper rose 0.6% to $4.1335.

Euro zone

In Europe, markets in Germany, France, London, Spain and Switzerland are closed for the Boxing Day holiday.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly higher on Thursday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 gaining 1.12%, China's Shanghai Composite Index gaining 0.14% and India's BSE Sensex falling 0.01%.

Economics

U.S. initial jobless claims fell by 1,000 from the previous week to a reading of 219,000 during the second week of December, compared to market estimates of 224,000.

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