Stock market today: Dow sidesteps tech wreck to keep winning streak alive

Investing.com -- The Dow closed higher Thursday, wrapping its ninth straight day of gains and its longest winner streak since 2017 as a climb in Johnson and Johnson and IBM offset the wreck in tech amid a selloff in Tesla and Netflix.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.47%, or 163 points, Nasdaq was down 2.1% and the S&P 500 fell 0.7%.

Johnson & Johnson, IBM keep Dow win streak intact

International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM), a major Dow component, shrugged off the weakness in tech despite reporting mixed second-quarter results as revenue fell short of Wall Street estimates.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) rallied 6% after the consumer products company lifted its annual guidance earnings guidance following better-than-expected quarterly results, driven by a surge in its med tech business.

Tesla slides as fresh margin worries overshadow Q2 results beat

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) reported second-quarter results that beat Wall Street estimates, but fears of falling margins were renewed after Chief Executive Elon Musk said the electric vehicle maker would be willing to cut prices again should the economic backdrop deteriorate.

Still, the quarterly results from Tesla were a step in the "right direction," Wedbush says, touting optimism over the EV maker's plan to licence its full self-driving software to other automakers.

"We view Tesla where Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was in the 2008/2009 period as Cupertino was just starting to monetize its services and golden ecosystem with the Street not seeing the broader golden vision at the time," Wedbush said in a note as it lifted its price target on the stock to $350 from $300.

Netflix leads pain in Tech

Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) fell more than 8% as the streaming giant reported a second-quarter revenue miss, though it added more subscribers than expected in the quarter.

The company's slow rollout of paid sharing, which bans members from sharing their subscriptions with users outside their household, was a "surprise to investors," Oppenheimer said, and weighed on average revenue per membership.

But the slow pace of paid sharing rollout is likely to limit the impact to "premium subscribers around seasonal usage, content launch, and impact of strike on linear TV in Sept," Oppenheimer added after lifting its target on the stock to $515 from $500.

Labor market remains tight

Initial jobless claims unexpectedly fell 9,000 to 228,000 in the week ending July 15, the lowest since May. Signs the labor markets remain tight, which threaten wage inflation, come just ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision next week.

The Fed is widely expected to deliver a 0.25% rate hike on July 26.