TECH STOCKS: Google's Soap Opera Is The Talk Of Tech

By Rex Crum, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks such as Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. rose along with a broad slate of gains Thursday, and the overall sector got a boost from a bigger-than-expected revision to U.S. second-quarter growth.

However, it was a growing soap opera involving Google Inc. (GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin that was almost all that anyone in Silicon Valley, and the tech sector wanted to talk about.

Google got a lot of attention amid reports that company co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife, Anne Wojcicki, have separated after six years of marriage, and that the 40-year-old Brin has taken up with a 26-year-old Google employee, which Valleywag identified as Amanda Rosenberg, marketing manager for Google Glass.

Rosenberg was previously in a relationship with Hugo Barra, who until Tuesday was vice president of product management for Android at Google, Valleywag said. Barra left Google for a job at Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi.

While the talk about Brin was blowing up social media sites, investors seemed little concerned. Google shares rose almost 1%, to close at $855.43.

Among other bellwether tech stocks, Amazon (AMZN) rose by $2.40 a share, to close at $283.98. The online retailer said Thursday it has opened a Kindle book store in Mexico, with more than 70,000 Spanish-language titles available.

Apple (AAPL) rose by 80 cents a share, to $491.70, Facebook Inc. (FB) climbed almost 2%, to close at $41.28 a share and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) shares rose 1.6%, to end the day at $33.55.

Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM) shares rose 2%, to $43.65 ahead of the subscription business-software company's quarterly results, due after the close of trading.

Chipmaker Altera Corp. (ALTR) rose 2.6%, to close at $35.69 a share. Late Wednesday, Altera's board of directors authorized adding another 30 million shares to the company's stock buyback plan.

The overall tech sector got a lift as the nation's gross domestic product rose by an annual rate of 2.5% during the period between April and June, beating the government's first reading as well as economists' revised expectations.

The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) gained more than 27 points to close at 3,620, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) was up by 1.2%.

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