Tech jumps despite Russian invasion of Ukraine
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Tech stocks rose sharply on Thursday, as the ramifications of Russia's invasion of Ukraine were being felt far and wide.
Mega-cap tech stocks like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:FB) were largely higher, as Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta were all up nearly 2% or more. Only Apple was lower, trading down slightly less than 0.5%. 
Semiconductor stocks, such as Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) were also largely higher, as Intel, AMD, Nvidia and Marvell rose nearly 2% or more.
The broader NASDAQ was sharply higher, gaining nearly 2%, after being down nearly 2% to start the session.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives labeled Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a "black swan event," telling investors to focus on oversold tech names. 
"In covering tech stocks since the Tech Bubble/Burst the last few decades, we view these geopolitical shock events as times not to panic (knee jerk reaction this morning is always very scary watching the red screens) but instead selectively focus on the defensive tech stocks with significant free cash flow and oversold tech stalwart names across the tech ecosystem," Ives wrote in a note to investors.
He added that the top names to own as a result of the sell-off are Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE), Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) and "core chip names."
Adobe, Oracle and Salesforce were all higher in mid-day trading, with Adobe and Salesforce up more than 5% each. 
Other application software stocks were also sharply higher, as Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU), ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) and Ceridian HCM (NYSE:CDAY) all gained more than 4%.
Cyber security stocks, which Ives said previously could "surge" as a result of the invasion, jumped higher in mid-day trading, with Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW), Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) and Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) up between 8% and 12%, with Palo Alto leading the way.
Israeli-based Check Point Software (NASDAQ:CHKP) rose slightly less than 5% in mid-day trading, changing hands at $136.47.
"Based on our conversations over the last 48 hours with enterprises/CISOs and contacts in the Beltway, there is a growing concern that massive cyber warfare could be on the near-term horizon which would certainly catalyze an increase in spending around preventing sophisticated Russian-based cyber attacks going after datacenters, networks, vulnerability points, and other highly sensitive data," Ives wrote.
He added that stocks such as Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler (ZS), Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD), Tenable (NASDAQ:TENB), Varonis (NASDAQ:VRNS), Fortinet (FTNT), Telos (NASDAQ:TLS), Mandiant (NASDAQ:MNDT) and CyberArk (NASDAQ:CYBR) should benefit.
Seeking Alpha has compiled a list of six tech stocks that have exposure to Ukraine.