Microsoft Corp. MSFTwas headed for a $2 trillion market capitalization Wednesday, which would make it only the second U.S. equity at that level, along with Apple Inc. AAPLMicrosoft last ended a trading session worth more than $2 trillion on Aug. 25, 2022, according to Dow Jones Market Data, but a rapid downfall for tech stocks in the second half of last year brought it out of that stratosphere. Microsoft has gained in six of the past nine trading sessions to near the mark again, as excitement builds around the company’s use of OpenAI’s technology in its products, especially the Bing search engine, as it could beef up Microsoft’s rival to Alphabet Inc.’sGOOGLGOOGdominant search engine, Google. After displaying updates to Bing on Tuesday, Google held its own AI event Wednesday, but Google shares declined strongly after the event as Microsoft’s increased. Microsoft and Apple are the only two publicly-traded U.S. equities to close a session with a $2 trillion valuation — Alphabet has hit the level in intraday trading, but never made it to the end of a session. Microsoft needs to close with a share price of $268.68 or above to hit the $2 trillion mark; after hitting a high of $276.76, shares were trading for $268.58 as of 2 p.m. Eastern time.
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