By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks closed the week out
Friday with mild gains, led by Salesforce.com Inc. and GameStop
Corp. following those companies' upbeat earnings.
Salesforce (CRM) shares rose more than 7% to close at $59.80
after the cloud-software company late Thursday reported earnings
excluding one-time items of 13 cents a share on $1.32 billion in
revenue, while analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast Salesforce
to earn 12 cents a share on sales of $1.29 billion. Salesforce also
said deferred revenue, or sales from future software subscriptions,
rose 31% from a year ago.
Videogame retailer GameStop (GME) rose 6% to close at $42.90 a
share after the company's fiscal second-quarter profit more than
doubled from a year ago. The company said demand remained high for
Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Xbox One and Sony Corp.'s (SNE)
PlayStation 4 game consoles.
By the end of the day, gains also had come from Apple Inc.
(AAPL), Netflix Inc. (NFLX), Google Inc. (GOOGL) and Yahoo Inc.
(YHOO).
(Read more about other active stocks in Movers & Shakers:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gamestop-soars-aeropostale-sinks-foot-locker-reports-earnings-friday-2014-08-21.)
Many eyes were on Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen, who addressed the
U.S. central bank's annual summer conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Yellen said the main issue facing the Fed now is when it should
consider raising interest rates. The overall market was largely
unfazed by Yellen's comments.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) rose 6.5 points to
close at 4,538 and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) also
closed with a small gain.
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