By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks such as Apple Inc.
and Amazon.com Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. rose along with a broad
slate of gains Thursday, and the overall sector got a boost from a
bigger-than-expected revision to U.S. second-quarter growth.
However, it was a growing soap opera involving Google Inc.
(GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin that was almost all that anyone in
Silicon Valley, and the tech sector wanted to talk about.
Google got a lot of attention amid reports that company
co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife, Anne Wojcicki, have separated
after six years of marriage, and that the 40-year-old Brin has
taken up with a 26-year-old Google employee, which Valleywag
identified as Amanda Rosenberg, marketing manager for Google
Glass.
Rosenberg was previously in a relationship with Hugo Barra, who
until Tuesday was vice president of product management for Android
at Google, Valleywag said. Barra left Google for a job at Chinese
smartphone maker Xiaomi.
While the talk about Brin was blowing up social media sites,
investors seemed little concerned. Google shares rose almost 1%, to
close at $855.43.
Among other bellwether tech stocks, Amazon (AMZN) rose by $2.40
a share, to close at $283.98. The online retailer said Thursday it
has opened a Kindle book store in Mexico, with more than 70,000
Spanish-language titles available.
Apple (AAPL) rose by 80 cents a share, to $491.70, Facebook Inc.
(FB) climbed almost 2%, to close at $41.28 a share and Microsoft
Corp. (MSFT) shares rose 1.6%, to end the day at $33.55.
Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM) shares rose 2%, to $43.65 ahead of the
subscription business-software company's quarterly results, due
after the close of trading.
Chipmaker Altera Corp. (ALTR) rose 2.6%, to close at $35.69 a
share. Late Wednesday, Altera's board of directors authorized
adding another 30 million shares to the company's stock buyback
plan.
The overall tech sector got a lift as the nation's gross
domestic product rose by an annual rate of 2.5% during the period
between April and June, beating the government's first reading as
well as economists' revised expectations.
The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) gained more than 27 points to
close at 3,620, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX)
was up by 1.2%.
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