01:00 PM EDT, 07/30/2026 (MT Newswires) -- Tech stocks were sharply higher Thursday afternoon, with the State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) rising 6% and the State Street SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) climbing 6.9%.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor index popped 7.8%.

In corporate news, Microsoft ( MSFT ) shares jumped past 16% on Thursday, a day after the company reported higher-than-expected fiscal Q4 results. The company reported solid fiscal Q4 results and guidance, with its Azure, M365 Cloud and Copilot businesses reflecting rapid growth, countering the AI disruption narrative, Oppenheimer said in a note.