Stock Market Today: Dow Closes Higher as Salesforce Pops

Stocks struggled for direction Thursday as anticipation built ahead of tomorrow's key jobs report. This week's labor market updates have lifted expectations for a September rate cut, making Friday morning's release of the latest payrolls data even more important.  

Today, though, weekly jobless claims were in focus. According to the Labor Department, initial claims rose by 8,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 229,000 – their highest level in a month and more than economists were expecting. 

Investors hope the Federal Reserve will follow in the footsteps of the Bank of Canada and the European Central Bank (ECB), which issued their first rate cuts this week. According to CME Group's FedWatch Tool, futures traders are not expecting the Fed to make any change to the federal funds rate at its June and July meetings. However, the odds of a September rate cut have risen to 57% from last week's 45% probability.

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José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers, is expecting a miss in the monthly jobs report, "with the headline figure arriving at 165,000 alongside wage growth of 0.3% and the unemployment rate ticking up to 4%." However, these figures will likely "bolster rate-reduction projections further," he adds.

Lululemon rallies after earnings; Five Below stumbles

In single-stock news, Lululemon Athletica (LULU) stock rallied 4.8% after the athletic apparel maker beat top- and bottom-line expectations in its fiscal first quarter and announced a $1 billion increase to its stock buyback program.

"Although the company is experiencing growth deceleration in the Americas, we continue to believe LULU is the top player in apparel retail and expect an acceleration in growth across the Americas and continued success in China (+45% in Q1) and internationally," said CFRA Research analyst Zachary Warring, who maintained a Strong Buy rating on the consumer discretionary stock.

Five Below (FIVE) stock was one of the biggest losers Thursday. It fell 10.6% after the discount retailer missed expectations for its fiscal first quarter and slashed its full-year outlook, citing "underperformance in the lower-income demographic."

Elsewhere, Microsoft (MSFT) stock erased earlier losses to close up up 0.1%. The stock was in focus today after a report in The Wall Street Journal said the Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether the technology giant structured a recent deal with startup Inflection AI to avoid an antitrust review.

Salesforce leads Dow Jones stocks after ValueAct increases its stake

MSFT was hardly the the best Dow Jones stock today. That honor went to Salesforce (CRM), which rose 2.6% on news ValueAct Capital increased its stake in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm. 

According to a regulatory filing released late Wednesday, the activist investor bought an additional 428,000 shares of CRM following the stock's post-earnings tumble. ValueAct now owns 3.9 million CRM shares.

Thanks to CRM stock's gains, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2% to 38,886. The S&P 500, meanwhile, slipped 0.02% to 5,352, while the Nasdaq Composite shed 0.09% to 17,173.

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