On the macroeconomic front, Thursday's calendar is light. Investors digested weekly jobless claims, which came in at 212,000 for the week ended February 21, up from 208,000 the previous week. The Bloomberg consensus, however, had penciled in a steeper rise to 216,000, which puts the data into perspective and limits its negative impact on the markets.

Market participants will be watching Friday's January producer prices and the Chicago PMI for February.

Nvidia Slips, Salesforce in the Green

In corporate news, on Wednesday evening Nvidia posted Q4 results above expectations, supported by ever-larger spending on infrastructure. Still, the lack of a surprise effect, combined with lingering fears of a speculative bubble around artificial intelligence, is weighing on the stock, which is down 4.7%.

In its wake, several semiconductor names are also taking a hit. Broadcom is down 6.7%, Lam Research 5.4% and Applied Materials 5.5%, highlighting renewed investor caution across the supply chain.

Moving against the grain, Salesforce is up 3.2%, however. The CRM software maker reported results above expectations and announced a new $50bn share buyback plan.

IonQ is soaring 18.4% after reporting a rise in Q4 revenue and raising its outlook for Q1 as well as for 2026. In a similar move, Celsius is up nearly 12%, lifted by quarterly results that also topped market expectations.