Wall Street's main indexes rose on Thursday, driven by post-earnings advances in Meta and Tesla, although Microsoft's weak cloud forecast and downbeat results from Cigna dampened investor enthusiasm. Microsoft MSFT.O dropped 4.7% after forecasting disappointing growth in its cloud computing business.

By Deborah Mary Sophia and Joel Jose (Reuters) -Investors punished Microsoft with a 6% share drop on Thursday as hefty AI bets failed to drive a big increase in its cloud revenue, while Meta rose 4% after CEO Mark Zuckerberg assured Wall Street about growth with promises of a "really big year".

Stocks are ticking higher on Wall Street following a rush of profit reports from some of the country’s most influential companies. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% in early Thursday trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 14 points,