U.S. stocks continued a streak of choppy trading to start Thursday as third-quarter financial results from companies continued to barrel in against a backdrop of persisting growth concerns on Wall Street.

The major indices wavered to start the session, then steadily climbed throughout the morning. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) was up about 1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) moved up 350 points, or 1.2%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) was up 1.3%. Meanwhile, Treasury yields held at multi-year highs, with the rate-sensitive 2-year note topping 4.6% for the first time since 2007.

The U.K. had U.S. investors' attention again Thursday morning with the resignation of Prime Minister Liz Truss after her administration set forth a failed economic package including plans for tax cuts that roiled financial markets. The pound strengthened and U.K. bonds nudged higher following news Truss will step down by the end of next week.

Back in the U.S., the Labor Department reported an unexpected drop in the number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance for the week ended Oct. 15. Claims fell to 214,000 from a revised 226,000 last week, a sign the labor market remains tight despite efforts to tamp down the economy to cool inflation. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected applications to total 230,000.

"The drop in initial jobless claims supports our view that the increases in the past two weeks were noise rather than signal, triggered by seasonal adjustment problems," Pantheon Macroeconomics Chief Economist Ian Shepherdson said in a note. "Note too that the low claims numbers are not a guarantee of strong payrolls; when demand first softens, firms cut back gross new hiring before they start laying off existing staff."

Mike Loewengart, head of model portfolio construction at Morgan Stanley's Global Investment Office also noted that the figure may not be enough to shift investors’ focus off earnings, but strong jobs data and hot inflation readings in the coming weeks will ramp up projections for a 75-basis-point rate hike to end the year.