By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
were among the tech stocks on the rise Thursday, as the sector saw
broad gains and awaited earnings results from Oracle Corp. after
the close of trading.
Apple (AAPL) shares rose 42 cents to $102 as reports said Apple
will hold an event on Oct. 21 to unveil new models of the iPad and
iPad mini, and release the next version of its Macintosh operating
system, called Yosemite.
Amazon (AMZN) was up by $1.46 a share at $325.03 after the
company revamped its line of Kindle and Fire tablets, including a
6-inch screen Fire HD for $99, a new Fire HD Kids Edition for $149
that comes with a two-year guarantee, and the Kindle Voyage
e-reader for $199 that has free 3G cellular-network
connectivity.
Oracle (ORCL) shares rose 50 cents to $41.64 ahead of the
software giant's fiscal first-quarter results, due after the market
close. Analysts surveyed by FactSet have forecast Oracle to earn 64
cents a share, excluding one-time times, on $8.78 billion in
revenue. During the same period a year ago, Oracle earned 59 cents
a share on sales of $8.38 billion.
Gains also came from Facebook Inc. (FB), Twitter Inc. (TWTR),
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ).
The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF), which includes many leading
tech stocks, rose almost 25 points to 4,587, and the Philadelphia
Semiconductor Index (SOX) was up by 1%.
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