NEW YORK>> Wall Street rose to records Thursday following better-than-expected updates on the economy and a mixed set of profit reports from big U.S. companies.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.5% to top its all-time high set a week ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 229 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.7% to its own record set the day before.

Trading was calmer than Wednesday’s, when President Donald Trump jolted financial markets by saying he had discussed the “concept” of firing the chair of the Federal Reserve but was unlikely to do so. Such a move could help Wall Street get the lower interest rates it loves but would also risk a weakened Fed unable to make the unpopular moves needed to keep inflation under control.

A strong profit report from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. helped drive tech stocks, and its net income soared nearly 61% in the last quarter from a year earlier. The chip maker said it’s seeing strong demand from artificial-intelligence and other customers, and TSMC’s stock that trades in the United States rose 3.4%.

Other stocks involved in AI also climbed, and a 1% gain for Nvidia was one of the strongest forces pushing upward on the S&P 500.

PepsiCo jumped 7.5% after delivering revenue and profit that topped Wall Street’s expectations. The drink and snack giant also stood by its financial forecasts given in April, which projected lower full-year profit than previous forecasts due to increased costs from tariffs and a pullback in consumer spending.

United Airlines flew 3.1% higher after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also said it’s seen an acceleration in demand from customers that began in early July, and it’s expecting less uncertainty about the economy to hurt its business in the second half of this year.

Lucid Group’s stock surged 36.2% after it said Uber Technologies is aiming to use 20,000 or more of its vehicles over six years in a robotaxi program. Using an autonomy system by Nuro, it expects to launch “later next year in a major U.S. city.”

Uber, which plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Lucid and Nuro, saw its stock edge down by 0.3%.