San Francisco — Microsoft regained its spot as the second-most valuable US company on Friday after a disappointing quarterly report from Amazon wiped $65bn off the online retailer’s market capitalisation. Apple tops the list at moer than $1-trillion after crossing that threshold in September. Microsoft’s market capitalisation was Wall Street’s highest from late 1998 to early 2000 before the dot-com bubble burst. Amazon’s shares dropped 75%, the most in nearly three years after its holiday season sales outlook missed targets, fanning concerns that Wall Street’s tech darlings are finally starting to face stronger competition. Microsoft fell a more modest 1.1% in a broad technology sell-off that was also driven by a weaker-than-expected report from Google-parent Alphabet, leaving the Nasdaq composite index down 1.9% late Friday afternoon. Shares of Microsoft remain up nearly 4% from Wednesday, when the four-decade-old software company beat quarterly profit expectations, driven by its c...

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