• Thomson Financial, Friday, February 1, 2008 11:15 AM

Oh, what a difference a smart, aggressive move makes: The Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 futures markets received a bounce in the wake of the news that Microsoft was approaching Yahoo with a $44.6 billion offer to buy the company. The software giant's impressive bid trumped fears of a tech sector slowdown after Google issued disappointing fourth-quarter results on Thursday.

Prior to the open, Nasdaq futures surged 27.25 points at 1,875. Before the Microsoft bid, the index was trading down at about 4.75 points at 1,843. The news also boosted the S&P 500 futures 13.70 points at 1,393.30, when prior to the bid the index was up around 2.2 points at 1,381.80.

Yahoo shares, meanwhile, soared 55 percent to $27.90 ahead of Friday's open, following Microsoft's bid of $31 per share to buy the Web giant. Microsoft shares fell 1.8 percent to $32. The per-share offer represents a 62 percent premium on Yahoo's closing share price of $19.18. Meanwhile, Google shares fell 11 percent to $510 in premarket trading, thanks to lower than expected earnings.

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