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

Key U.S. market averages were mixed Thursday, as investors sorted through a new wave of earnings reports and labor-market updates, including a jump in job cuts, ahead of Friday's monthly U.S. payrolls report.

Dillard's (NYSE: DDS) might be the best-performing stock you've never heard of. The Arkansas-based department store chain is up 670% over the last five years as an aggressive share buyback program and a number of behind-the-scenes competitive advantages have driven phenomenal growth for an otherwise sleepy-looking business,