US cloud companies rise after Microsoft's upbeat forecast for Azure cloud business

** U.S. cloud companies rise following Microsoft's MSFT upbeat cloud revenue forecast

** Microsoft's results could ease investor concerns about a potential slowdown in AI demand; analysts had pointed to canceled data-center leases at MSFT as a sign of excess capacity

** MSFT shares jump 8.7%, Oracle ORCL up almost 4%, ServiceNow NOW rises 2.4%

** Datadog DDOG adds 1.9%, Snowflake SNOW gains 5.4%, Cloudflare NET up 3.5%, Salesforce CRM 2% higher

** Fellow "Magnificent Seven" companies offering cloud services also rise, with Amazon AMZN adding 3.1% and Alphabet GOOG gaining 1.7%

** As of last close, MSFT down 6.2% YTD, Oracle and ServiceNow down 15.7% and 10% YTD, respectively