By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 climbed Wednesday, as technology rebounded from a rout a day earlier, supported by rally in Microsoft (NASDAQ:) following better-than-expected quarterly results.  

They rose 1.2% and gained 1.2%. Or 385 points. The gained 1.1%.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:{{Microsoft (NASDAQ 🙂 and Alphabet NASDAQ:6369|GOOGL and Microsoft  (NASDAQ:)kicked off the quarterly earnings for big tech, but it was the latter’s quarterly results that helped steady sentiment on tech.

Microsoft’s fiscal third-quarter results, which beat both top and bottom line numbers by more than 6%, saw an increase of over 6%. It was led in part by its strong growth in cloud services.

“[T]he key metric that moves the stock, Azure Cloud revenue, accelerated to 49% constant-currency growth from 46%, the fastest pace since 4Q20 on double the revenue base,” Oppenheimer said in a note.

Alphabet fell more than 3 percent after it reported its first quarter earnings. The tech giant was hit by lower than anticipated growth in its YouTube company.

“YouTube’s 2nd miss in a row [was] the main controversy,” RBC said in a note, as the streaming platform “battles TikTok with YT shorts.”

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: ), the parent company of Facebook, continues to flow big-tech earnings with its first quarter results following the close.

Semiconductor stocks failed to make a profit due to the slide in Texas Instruments shares (NASDAQ:). This chipmaker lost more than 2 percent after its stronger-than-expected quarter results were offset with weaker guidance due to Covid restrictions in China that are likely to reduce growth.

The spotlight will continue to be on chipmakers as Qualcomm (NASDAQ.) announces its quarterly results at the close of the markets.

Boeing (NYSE 🙂 dropped more than 8 percent to limit gains in wider markets after reporting its first quarter results which missed both top and bottom line. According to the aircraft manufacturer, it also stated that production would be stopped on its 777X plane and deliveries will not begin until 2025.

After reporting better-than expected quarterly results, Visa (NYSE:) also helped lift the wider market. The payments processor said that it expects further growth when travel spending picks up.

Energy saw gains, despite oil prices slipping despite dollar weakness and worries about demand after a surge in Covid-19 case in China.

Data showing that crude oil stock piles in the United States rose more than anticipated last week helped to support oil prices.

Valero Energy (NYSE:), APA NASDAQ:), and Devon Energy The top energy gainers were (NYSE:).