Midday movers: Salesforce, Dollar General, Crowdstrike and more

Investing.com -- U.S. are mixed on Thursday, closing out a down month as investors awaited the release of key inflation and unemployment data.

Here are some of the biggest U.S. stock movers today:

• Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) stock rose 3.7% after the software group increased its annual revenue outlook, citing strong demand for its cloud products.

• Dollar General (NYSE:DG) stock slumped 12.7% after the discount retailer cut its annual same-store sales forecast as it expects customers to remain under pressure from still-high inflation and pull back on discretionary spending.

• Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) stock rose 9.1% after the cybersecurity company delivered better-than-expected second-quarter results as its AI-powered cybersecurity platform boosted new business wins.

• Victoria's Secret (NYSE:VSCO) stock rose 7.7% despite forecasting a decline in its third-quarter sales and missing its second-quarter results estimates.

• Sage Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SAGE) stock rose 2.4% after the biotech company said it would cut its workforce by about 40%, weeks after the U.S. health regulator declined to approve its drug to treat major depressive disorder.

• Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) stock rose 15.8% after the optical networking company reported fiscal third-quarter results that topped forecasts, citing increased customer activity and an elevated backlog.

• Palantir (NYSE:PLTR) stock fell 8.5% after Morgan Stanley downgraded its stance on the big data analytics company to ‘underweight’ from ‘equal weight’, saying “near-term optimism in AI product cycle and valuation premium create an unfavorable risk-reward.”

• Chewy (NYSE:CHWY) stock fell 11.4% after the pet products retailer offered up a weaker-than-expected full-year sales forecast, prompting Evercore ISI to downgrade its stance to ‘in line’ from ‘outperform’.

--Peter Nurse contributed to this report