03:22 PM EDT, 08/07/2026 (MT Newswires) -- Tech stocks were higher late Friday afternoon, with the State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) rising 1.3% and the State Street SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) climbing 4.6%.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor index added 2.4%.

In corporate news, Microsoft ( MSFT )-backed (MSFT) OpenAI is slowing down development of its new Astra model and is scaling up testing because it cannot "rule out critical cyber capabilities," Axios reported. Microsoft ( MSFT ) shares were up 0.3%.