7 Stocks you need to know for Thursday

The Dow soared 279.01. The Nasdaq gained 66.21. And the S&P 500 ended the day up 35.02.

Apple (AAPL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) announced quarterly earnings Wednesday after the market closed, blowing away analyst estimates by a wide margin of more than 30 cents.

Also announcing earnings after the bell on Wednesday was eBay (EBAY | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating), ], which reported fourth quarter earnings that were roughly in line with expectations.

Announcing its quarterly earnings before the market opens on Thursday, Lockheed Martin (LMT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) is expected to report earnings per share of 1.92.

Earnings per share of 37 cents is what analysts are expecting Nokia (NOK | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) to report on Thursday when the company makes its quarterly earnings announcement.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) will report earnings on Thursday after the market closes. Analysts are expecting an earnings per share loss of 54 cents.

Also reporting earnings Thursday after the bell are both Google (GOOG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) and Microsoft (MSFT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating). Analysts are expecting Google to announce earnings per share of 4.96. For its part, Microsoft is expected to report EPS of 49 cents.