Stocks climbed higher on Thursday as investors continue to be encouraged by another batch of better-than-expected earnings reports from market heavyweights. Investors also cheered a late afternoon announcement from the White House that President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping plan to discuss trade in South Korea next week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA  ) rose over 140 points on Thursday to settle at 46,734.61, while the broader market S&P 500 Index (SPY  ) added nearly 0.6% to close at 6,738.44. The Nasdaq Composite (QQQ  ) outperformed its peers on Thursday, trading about 0.9% higher to end the day at 22,941.80.

Drawing much of the day's attention, Tesla (TSLA  ) reported a 12% increase in third quarter revenue after close on Wednesday, signaling some recovery after two consecutive quarters of losses. Much of those gains could be attributed to the expiration of federal tax credits for electric vehicles, promptings consumers to buy while the inventive was still active.

Still, the company's results continued to show declining sales in Europe, which are partly due to consumer boycotts against CEO Elon Musk's political activism in the region, as well as by increasing competition in the EV sector. Musk focused more on the company's forward goals during its earnings call with analysts, stating that Tesla expects "to have no safety drivers in large parts of Austin by the end of this year," for its robotaxi segment. Musk added that the company plans to launch tests of its autonomous robotaxis in another eight to ten metro areas this year.

"The company is hyper-aware of media sensitivity and potential regulatory backlash if anything goes wrong, so it is proceeding with extreme caution," Blair analyst Jed Dorsheimer said in a note following the Tesla's call. "The Tesla story, and valuation multiple, rely on seamless execution rolling out revolutionary technology."

IBM (IBM  ) also reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings results late Wednesday, benefitting from its expanding artificial intelligence segment. The company revised its revenue guidance to now expect "more than" 5% revenue growth, instead of its previous "less than."

"Clients globally continue to leverage our technology and domain expertise to drive productivity in their operations and deliver real business value with AI," CEO Arvind Krishna said in a release, noting that the company's AI bookings surpassed $9.5 billion during the quarter.

Rounding out the earnings front, American Airlines (AAL  ) posted a smaller-than-expected loss in its third-quarter and issued positive forward guidance as the carrier expects its fourth-quarter capacity to grow between 3% and 5% annually. Rival Southwest Airlines (LUV  ) delivered a surprise profit in its third-quarter, benefitting from improving travel demand and fare increases.

The airline now expects unit revenue to rise between 1% and 3% in its fourth quarter, stating that this new "guidance range assumes demand strength remains at current levels through the end of the quarter."

In economic news, sales of existing U.S. homes reached a seven-month high in September as mortgage rates continue to soften, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported Thursday.

Existing home sales rose 1.5% over August and 4.1% annually to a seasonally adjusted and annualised rate of 4.06 million last month, while inventory remained stable at 4.6 months supply.

"As anticipated, falling mortgage rates are lifting home sales. Improving housing affordability is also contributing to the increase in sales," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR, in a statement, referring to how the average sales price of an existing unit sold fell month-over-month to $415,200. However, that still marked a 2.1% increase from the same periods in 2024.

In the news, shares of quantum computing stocks such as Rigetti Computing (RGTI  ), IonQ (IONQ  ) and Quantum Computing (QUBT  ) jumped higher on Thursday after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is exploring a potential equity stake in several companies in the sector. The White House has previously entered similar deals with other companies including Intel (INTC  ) and MP Materials (MP  ).

Uber (UBER  ) shares also rose higher on Thursday after Nvidia (NVDA  ) announced its partnership with the ridesharing company will deploy more autonomous driving taxis. The companies have collaborated on autonomous vehicle technology using Nvidia's Cosmos AI models with Uber's multi-view driving data that operates on the chipmaker's DGX Cloud platform, Uber wrote in a Thursday post on X.

"Together, we're exploring how foundation models trained on large-scale, real-world driving data can accelerate progress in autonomy," Nvidia Drive, the company's AI-powered autonomous car and driver assistance unit, posted on X. "Using data from Uber's diverse driving scenarios -- spanning airport pickups, complex intersections, and variable weather -- we post-trained NVIDIA Cosmos World Foundation Models to improve realism and safety."

Looking ahead, market participants will react to another round of earnings reports from companies including Intel, Ford (F  ), and Procter & Gamble (PG  ) on Friday. Key economic readings due out throughout the session include the S&P flash U.S. services and manufacturing PMIs and the final consumer sentiment reading for October.