Stocks rallied Thursday as a batch of stellar tech earnings reports, including one from Nvidia, revived the artificial-intelligence trade.

Nvidia shares rose 7.7% after the chip maker's second-quarter earnings topped analysts' expectations. Nvidia also forecast strong revenue growth for fiscal 2028, signaling to investors that AI demand should remain robust.

Chips and networking company Marvell declined 0.4%. Marvell reports earnings after the closing bell Thursday. While Nvidia's report has boosted the AI trade, Marvell's earnings could matter even more.

Sandisk dropped 1.3%. The memory supplier and Tokyo-based Kioxia Holdings announced plans to invest more than $31 billion in Japan to bolster their joint-venture and drive flash memory supply.

Magnificent Seven stocks were mixed. Apple was up a fraction, Microsoft rose 1.4%, Alphabet declined 0.4%, Amazon fell 1.4%, and Meta Platforms fell 0.6%.

Salesforce advanced 22% and was the best-performing S&P 500 stock. The software company topped analysts' second-quarter expectations and expanded its partnership with Anthropic.

CrowdStrike rose 18% after the cybersecurity company posted better-than-expected second-quarter earnings. CEO George Kurtz called it the best quarter in CrowdStrike's history.

Veeva Systems also gained 18%. The life sciences cloud solutions provider posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings and raised its fiscal-year profit outlook well above Wall Street expectations. Nearly 20 analyst firms raised price targets on the stock.

Okta surged 23% after the identity security company posted better-than-expected third-quarter earnings and revenue, as AI drives up demand for online protection.

Dollar General advanced 5.2%. The company's quarterly earnings surpassed Wall Street expectations and Dollar General also raised its fiscal-year profit guidance. Dollar Tree declined 2% after the discount retailer's guidance disappointed Wall Street.

HP Inc. dropped 6.1% after the personal computer and printing company reported disappointing unit sales for the third quarter. Investors were also fretting about surging memory-chip costs.

Nutanix gained 7% to $69.96. The cloud-computing company's fourth-quarter results beat what Wall Street was looking for. There could also be further upside as revenue catches up with bookings, KeyBanc analyst Brandon Nispel said as he raised his price target to $79 from $75.

Hormel Foods fell 8.8% and was the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500. The food company slashed its fiscal-year outlook after net sales dropped in its third quarter. Management attributed the guidance cut to lower prices for raw turkey and private-label snack nuts.