Stock Market Could Rise Wednesday. Thank Microsoft Earnings.

That wasn’t just a problem for owners of Microsoft stock. It’s also the second-largest publicly traded company in the U.S., which means it’s the second-largest holding in the

S&P 500
and the

Nasdaq-100.
And that means those indexes are already falling, even though the market isn’t even open right now. The

SPDR S&P 500 ETF
(SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 and has a 6% position in Microsoft, had fallen 1% in after-hours trading, while the

Invesco QQQ
(QQQ), which tracks the Nasdaq-100 and has a 9.9% stake in Microsoft, had dropped 1.6%.

That all changed after Microsoft’s conference call, which caused investors to have a change of heart. And why wouldn’t they? Microsoft said its third-quarter Productivity and Business Processes revenue would come in between $15.6 billion and $15.85 billion, and its Personal Computing revenue would come in between $14.15 billion and $14.45 billion. It also said its margins would grow slightly. And with that, Microsoft’s loss became a gain—as did the stock market’s.

With Microsoft up 2.3% at 6:50 p.m., the QQQ ETF has risen 0.6% and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF had advanced 0.3%.

Now the Fed just has to keep from messing it all up.

Write to Ben Levisohn at ben.levisohn@barrons.com