It has been pretty rare for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) to take a leadership role in the stock market lately. Many investors have focused instead on major market benchmarks with more of a concentration in high-growth stocks rather than the tried-and-true, mature businesses that make up the 30 constituents of the Dow.

On Wednesday morning, though, the Dow looked as if it were on pace to outperform its peer stock indexes. Much of the strong relative performance came from two stocks: Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Boeing (NYSE: BA), both of which released their latest financial reports over the past 24 hours. Here, you'll get a closer look at what Microsoft and Boeing said and what the future could bring for these two giants of their respective industries.

Shares of Microsoft were up more than 4% in premarket trading Wednesday morning. The software giant released its fiscal first-quarter financial report for the period ended Sept. 30, and investors saw all the positive news they wanted about Microsoft's forays into artificial intelligence (AI) and other high-growth areas.

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Source Fool.com