Microsoft rejoins Apple in $2 trillion club as rally accelerates

A rally in the shares of Microsoft Corp. has the software giant’s market value set to close above $2 trillion for the first time in nearly six months amid a rebound in technology stocks.

Microsoft rose as much as 3.4% to $276.76 early Wednesday, joining Apple Inc. as the only stocks with market capitalizations above $2 trillion. This is the first time it has exceeded that level since August after rallying 29% from a November low. Apple has a market value of about $2.44 trillion.

Recent gains in the stock have come amid widespread investor interest in all things related to artificial intelligence. Last month, Microsoft announced that it’s stepping up its investment in OpenAI, the owner of a wildly popular chat bot. At an event on Feb. 7, the company unveiled a version of its Bing internet-search engine powered by the ChatGPT technology.

So far this year, the stock is up 15%, compared with a gain of 16% in the Nasdaq 100 Index. Nvidia Corp., a chipmaker that has benefited from the interest in AI, has soared 55%. Apple has gained 19% this year.

In January, Microsoft reported quarterly results that were seen as mixed, with the company warning of a slowdown in cloud and business software sales.

Separately, Britain’s antitrust watchdog provisionally found that Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. will harm competition in the UK gaming market.