Apple, Microsoft: Tech Winners

Like the broader market, the technology sector rallied Wednesday on positive economic data.
By Olivia Oran ,

Apple, Microsoft: Tech Winners story updated with closing prices.

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- Technology stocks helped lead the broader market Wednesday, which

rallied most of the day

on news of better-than-expected U.S. job data and other positive economic reports. The

Nasdaq

gained 51 points, or 2.1%, to close at 2,549.

Apple

(AAPL) - Get Report

rose 1.7% to close at $316.50, boosted by strong sales of its iPad and Mac products over the busy shopping weekend. On Monday, an analyst at Janney called Apple "the Black Friday winner." And a new report from Nielsen said that the iPhone is now tied with

Research In Motion's

(RIMM)

BlackBerry as the most popular smartphones in the U.S.

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

shares increased 3.1% to close at $26.04 as the company announced Monday that it had sold 2.5 million Kinect devices for the Xbox, and was on track to meet its forecast of 5 million units.

Red Hat

(RHT) - Get Report

jumped 6.3% to $46.23. The company said Tuesday that it was acquiring software company

Makara

to strengthen its cloud strategy. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Nokia

(NOK) - Get Report

shot up 4% and closed at $9.60; a Morgan Stanley analyst wrote Tuesday that the company's N8 smartphone is a hit despite fears that the device was selling poorly. Nokia will likely sell 2.5 million N8s this fall and 9 million devices through 2011, the report said.

THQ

(THQI)

closed up 6.9% to $5.43 on Wednesday, as investors reacted positively to the video game company's

new uDraw tablet

for the Wii.

THQ

recently increased guidance for the uDraw from 1 million devices to 1.25 to 1.3 million units for the fiscal year. Shares of THQ have jumped almost 16% in the last five days.

--Written by Olivia Oran in New York.

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