01:45 PM EDT, 03/19/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Tech stocks were mixed Tuesday afternoon, with the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) rising 0.4% and the SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) shedding 0.5%.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 0.8%.

In corporate news, Microsoft ( MSFT ) shares added nearly 1% after the tech giant said Tuesday it hired Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan to head a new business segment called Microsoft AI. Suleyman and Simonyan are co-founders of artificial intelligence startup Inflection AI, a rival of Microsoft ( MSFT )-backed OpenAI.