Microsoft sends US equities higher Microsoft attracted heavy buying on Friday as investors reacted positively to the software developer's better than expected first-quarter earnings that it announced after the market close on Thursday. Shares in the software developer rose 4.1 per cent to $32.31, with more than 10m shares traded in the first 15 minutes of the day. The company delivered better than forecast sales of Windows software and revenue from the Microsoft Business Division, which develops enterprise software. Analysts were also impressed by the company's cost control. "In all, higher revenue and slightly lower expenses drove the upside," said Walter Pritchard at Citigroup. Other technology shares slipped in early trading however, with SanDisk slumping 13.6 per cent to $34.95 after first-quarter earnings fell by almost 50 per cent compared with the same period the year before, as sales plunged and costs rose. The flash memory storage provider forecast second-quarter revenue of just $1bn, far below analyst expectations. Nomura analysts now estimate second-quarter earnings per share of as little as 15 cents, compared to previous expectations of as much as 83 cents. "We are disappointed with the magnitude of the estimate cut, but believe the stock's [poor start to the day] has mostly discounted the near term weakness," said Romit Shah at Nomura. That pushed other semiconductor manufacturers lower with Micron Technology off 3.3 per cent to $6.78 and Altera falling 3.9 per cent to $37.01. The outsized influence of Microsoft's $273bn market capitalisation meant tech stocks still opened in positive territory, up 0.2 per cent, but this was one of the weakest sectoral performances. Ending a two-day losing streak the S&P 500 rose 0.4 per cent and is set to end the week in positive territory, having fallen the two previous weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.6 per cent to 13,036.95, boosted by strong earnings for General Electric , which gained 1.4 per cent to $19.40 and McDonald's , which rose 1.9 per cent to $97.13 as profit rose almost 5 per cent from the same period last year. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite index lagged behind slightly, edging 0.4 per cent higher to 3,018.