Nothing presents a middle finger to investors and stock analysts like four of the world’s biggest companies — arch-rivals, at that — reporting their earnings on the same day, within minutes of each other. Amazon, Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Alphabet did that on Wednesday. It’s not like they had bad news to bury: the foursome collectively reported earnings growth of 60 per cent compared with a year earlier.
This high-tech pile-up marks a moment, of sorts. Last time it happened, in October 2020, the Silicon Valley supergroup had a combined market capitalisation of about $5tn. Since then their aggregate value has more than doubled. Amazingly, considering their sheer size, all four are growing like companies a fraction of their size: Meta’s revenue increased by 33 per cent, the others by roughly 20 per cent.
It goes without saying that AI is now the story. Nobody was watching Big Tech’s capital expenditure five years ago. Now, such investment — dominated by building AI data centres — moves share prices, and not always predictably. Meta and Alphabet boosted their colossal investment plans for the year to a potential $145bn and $190bn respectively on Wednesday. Meta’s stock fell after the market closed; Alphabet’s rose.