The broader market traded lower on Thursday as a disappointing outlook from Microsoft (MSFT  ) impacted positive momentum in the software sector.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA  ) outperformed the market on Thursday, rising over 50 points to settle at 49,071.56, while the S&P 500 Index (SPY  ) and Nasdaq Composite (QQQ  ) each slid about 0.1% and 0.7% lower to end the day at 6,969.01 and 23,685.12, respectively.

Impacting much of the day's session, Microsoft shares fell lower on Thursday, leading the software giant to post its worst day since March 2020, after the company issued soft operating margin guidance for its fiscal third quarter despite its positive earnings report late Wednesday. Microsoft's lackluster results also led to other software losses from ServiceNow (NOW  ), Oracle (ORCL  ) and Salesforce (CRM  ) on Thursday.

Meta Platforms (META  ), however, saw shares jump after its strong first-quarter sales forecast issued late Wednesday. CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted during the company's earnings call that the social media giant is planning to increase artificial intelligence spending through 2026, calling for AI-related capital expenditures to range between $115 billion and $135 billion, or nearly twice the amount Meta spent last year.

"As we plan for the future, we will continue to invest very significantly in infrastructure to train leading models and deliver personal super intelligence to billions of people and businesses around the world," Zuckerberg told analysts.

Tesla (TSLA  ) also made headlines on Thursday after its earnings report, with CEO Elon Musk announcing that the automaker will end production its less popular Model S and X vehicles, and instead will use the Fremont, California factory to build Optimus humanoid robots.

"It's time to basically bring the Model S and X programs to an end with an honorable discharge," Musk said on the company's fourth-quarter earnings call. "If you're interest in buying a Model S and X, now would be the time to order it."

The models are Tesla's oldest and only accounted for about 3% of the company's 1.59 million deliveries last year, trailing far behind the its more popular 3 and Y models. Tesla also reported its first annual revenue decline on record on Wednesday, with its sales falling in three of the past four quarters.

Looking ahead, all eyes will be on Apple's (AAPL  ) earnings report on Friday for more clues on the health of the mega-cap technology sector heading into the first-quarter.