Okta's Optimistic Outlook Sends SaaS Stocks Skyward; Constellation Loses Its Buzz

Wall Street got off to a relatively positive start on Thursday morning, although not all of the major market benchmarks were able to post gains. At first glance, U.S. employment data that showed continuing high levels of jobless claims might have seemed like bad news, but investors seemed to take it as a reason to believe that the Federal Reserve will remain accommodative in its monetary policy further into the future. Okta (NASDAQ: OKTA) posted big gains on Thursday, lifting the entire software-as-a-service stock group with it on favorable comments about its future.