By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 cut losses Thursday, to remain in the hunt for record highs as weakness in energy was mostly offset by a Tesla-fueled climb in consumer discretionary stocks and strength in big tech.

It was close to the intraday record of 4,545.83, which it had held for 4,545.85. However, it rose 0.10% to 4,540.83, while the dropped 0.2% (or 74 points) and an added 0.48%.

The energy stocks plummeted by 2% when oil prices reversed after hitting $86/barrel. This was due to investors taking profit.

Baker Hughes Halliburton, (NYSE:), Kinder Morgan (NYSE:) fell sharply after the release of quarterly results that were unexpectedly positive a day earlier.

Other sectors, such as financials or materials, were also affected by the downturn despite positive data.

The US dropped to 290,000. This is a decrease of 296,000, which was upwardly revised, in comparison to economists’ predictions for a rise to 300,000.

Pantheon Macroeconomics wrote in a note, “With labor supply tightening and new record-high job openings following a Delta dip, it is becoming more difficult to layoff workers.” “It’s a decent bet, we think, that claims return to their pre-Covid lows, about 210K, around the turn of the year.”

As the Philly Fed regional index fell from 30.7 to 23.8 September and missed estimates of 25.0, supply-chain disruptions had a negative impact on manufacturing activity.

However, the market recovered from losses thanks to rising stocks of consumer discretionary stock. Tesla is the driving force.

Tesla (NASDAQ) increased 3% following Wall Street’s cheers for the automaker’s record quarter. This was a result of rising margins and exceeding analysts’ estimates.

“Auto gross margin was 30%+ and roughly 250 bps ahead of Street expectations which highlights the massive leverage in the Tesla story now starting to take hold with Giga China front and center…,” Wedbush said in a note as it upgraded its price target on the stock to $1,100 from $1,000.

After delivering better than expected quarter results and a double-digit increase in comparable store sales, Tractor Supply (NASDAQ) supported consumer discretionary stock.

Tractor Supply posted fiscal Q3 EPS figures of $1.95. That’s an improvement of $1.62 in the previous year and is well above Wall Street estimates of $1.67. The shares rose more than 4 percent.

International Business Machines’ (NYSE:) tech stock dropped almost 9% due to a disappointing third-quarter result and a weak performance in its legacy services technology business.

Apple (NASDAQ:), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:), Facebook (NASDAQ:), Alphabet (NASDAQ:) and Microsoft  (NASDAQ:) were mostly higher.