A major wave of earnings news Thursday could keep the tug-of-war going between Wall Street's bulls and bears.

Stocks slumped Wednesday, as the books were about to close on January -- so far the best January for the  S& P 500  since 1997. On Wednesday morning, stocks overcame the first  negative GDP print  in more than three years, as many economists expected a positive revision in coming weeks and blamed the surprise 0.1 percent contraction in the fourth quarter on a big drop in defense spending and inventories.

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The dip in defense spending came after a stronger third quarter for defense, and the decline was seen as the result of winding down war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was also seen as possible advance activity ahead of the 'sequester,' the automatic cuts to defense and other government agencies that comes March 1 if Congress does not act.

" The fact inventories collapsed tells me demand was bigger than investors expected. On the manufacturing and cap ex output side, you're probably going to see a bounce in Q1," said Larry Kantor, director of research at Barclays.

Stocks fluctuated but finished the day lower, after the  Fed released a statementproviding little new information. Fed officials did point out that economic activity " paused in recent months" due to weather and temporary factors. They also said they expect economic growth to continue at a moderate pace and the job market to improve, as they kept their $85 billion a month asset purchase program in place.

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Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS, said stocks had an interesting finish Wednesday. He said there was a surge of buy orders –as much as $1 billion more to buy than sell- at the close, but the headlines of an Israeli attack on Syria weighed on sentiment and prices. " The market on close buyers are all playing the multinationals," he said.

CNBC