Bloomberg Enlarge Image A worker at an Amazon.com fulfillment center in Goodyear, Arizona. SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com flexed their muscles Friday and the two tech heavyweights helped the tech sector withstand losses from the likes of Apple Inc. and close the week out on an upbeat note.
Also getting attention was Twitter Inc. (TWTR) after the micro-blogging company late Thursday set a price range of $17 to $20 a share for its IPO, which reportedly could take place in early November.
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/quotes/zigman/12633936 COMP 3,943.36, +14.40, +0.37%
The action helped push the Nasdaq (COMP) up by 14 points to close at 3,943. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (COMP) rose 0.4% and the Morgan Stanley High-Tech Index (MSH) also closed with a small gain.
Investors gave high marks to Microsoft (MSFT) , sending its shares up 6% to close at $35.73 a day after the tech giant reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results. Microsoft said it earned $5.24 billion, or 62 cents a share, on revenue of $18.53 billion. During the year-ago period, Microsoft earned $4.7 billion, or 53 cents a share, on $16 billion in sales.
Microsoft said its results were boosted by sales of cloud services and its business applications. Rick Sherlund, of Nomura Equity Research, also cited Microsoft's $400 million in revenue from Surface tablet sales as an a upbeat sign for the company, especially at a time when the PC market is declining.
"Any less of a drag from the PC business and related consumer shift to tablets and notebooks is good news," Sherlund said.
Amazon (AMZN) surged by almost 10%, to end the week at $363.39 a share after the Internet-retailing leader cut its third-quarter loss from a year ago and reported better-than-expected sales figures.
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Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler used Amazon's results as the basis for upgrading his rating on the company's stock to strong by from market perform. Kessler cited Amazon's revenue momentum and continuing growth in the U.S. among the reasons for his stock upgrade.
Online social-gaming company Zynga Inc. (ZNGA) climbed more than 5% to $3.73 in the wake of the social-gaming company posting better sales than analysts had forecast, and cutting its loss from a year ago. It was the first full quarter of results for Zynga since former Microsoft executive Don Mattrick became the company's chief executive.
Other gains came from Pandora Media Inc. (P) , Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) .
Apple (AAPL) , meanwhile, fell by 1% to close at $525.96 in advance of the iPad maker's quarterly results, due after the close of trading Monday.
Decliners also included Facebook Inc. (FB) , Google Inc. (GOOG) and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) .
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