Wall Street drifted to a mixed close as drops for Ford Motor and Qualcomm worked against buoyant fashion and cigarette stocks. The S&P 500 rose 0.4% Thursday following healthy gains for stock markets across much of Europe and Asia.

Wall Street experiences mixed performance as fashion and tobacco stocks surge, while automotive and tech sectors face challenges.

Wall Street is drifting Thursday as gains for fashion brands and cigarette makers help offset drops for Ford Motor and Qualcomm following their latest profit reports. The S&P 500 rose

Qualcomm Chief Executive Officer Cristiano Amon said on Wednesday that Arm Holdings has withdrawn a threat to terminate Qualcomm's license agreement with the chip technology provider.

Arm threatened to axe Qualcomm's license to develop chips based on Arm's designs. But a recent court loss convinced Arm to throw in the towel.

Back in October, during the Snapdragon Summit, news broke that ARM was going to terminate its licensing agreement with Qualcomm. This was because ARM said