Microsoft Makes History with $450 Billion Single-Day Stock Surge

Microsoft Corp. made stock market history on Thursday, adding nearly half a trillion dollars to its market value in a single day — the largest one-day gain for any company in Wall Street history. Shares of the Redmond, Washington-based company soared 16%, marking their biggest single-day percentage gain since October 2008. The surge added approximately $450 billion to Microsoft's market capitalization. The move eclipses Nvidia Corp.'s $440 billion addition following President Donald Trump's announcement of a 90-day tariff pause last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Thursday's surge came after Microsoft reported that revenue for its Azure cloud unit surged 43% during the fiscal fourth quarter — the most since early 2022. The company also confirmed its capital spending plans for 2026 remain unchanged. The nearly $500 billion jump is larger than the market capitalization of roughly 96% of S&P 500 stocks. It is also bigger than the combined value of the benchmark's 41 smallest members, which includes companies like Domino's Pizza Inc., Clorox Co. and Hasbro Inc. Microsoft's one-day value addition also dwarfs many of the world's other equity markets. South Africa, Turkey, Finland and Vietnam all have total stock market values that are less than what the software maker added on Thursday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 2.8 percent to 25,122, the S&P 500 rose 1.7 percent to 7,437, and the Dow rose 1.2 percent to 52,208. Analysts pointed to a pull-back in oil prices as supportive of equities, as traders reacted to comments from Pakistan insisting that negotiations between Iran and the United States were ongoing despite escalating strikes on both sides. The Microsoft results came at the end of a difficult July for tech companies after the Nasdaq's huge second-quarter gains. Major U.S. tech companies have been spending billions to build out AI infrastructure and develop increasingly advanced AI models. This week's earnings results have been