Tech earnings week turns around after Google, Microsoft, and Snap delight Wall Street

Until late yesterday, major tech stocks were having a pretty rough few weeks. But thanks to premarket surges this morning from Google, Microsoft, and Snap, the final week of April could be a very good one for select tech giants. Here’s what to know:

Netflix changes the rules

The tech earnings period kick-started last week in earnest with streamer Netflix reporting its Q1 2024 results, which saw the company beat on both revenue and profit. But shares fell after the company announced it would stop disclosing the number of its subscribers next year.

Subscriber numbers have traditionally been a key metric that investors use to determine the health of the company. Yet Netflix now disagrees, saying such numbers have less meaning for the company than they used to. Still, Netflix went from trading around $610 per share before its earnings on April 18 to just over $561 as of the time of this writing.

Meta beats but still sinks

Then this Wednesday, investors also got spooked with Meta’s Q1 2024 results when the company’s stock price sunk 12% in after-hours trading after it announced lackluster revenue projections and increased spending. The decline in stock price came despite high quarterly revenue and profits for the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

But yesterday reversed the trend of major tech companies getting pummeled during this earnings season.

Snap pops

On a relative basis, the biggest winner by far is Snap. The Snapchat owner’s stock is up over 24% in premarket trading as of the time of this writing after the company reported its Q1 2024 earnings, which saw it increase revenue for the quarter by 21% compared to a year earlier. It also saw a 10% increase in daily active users for the quarter versus the year-ago quarter. Currently, Snap shares are trading at $14.20 in premarket.

Alphabet’s dividend soup

Google owner Alphabet’s shares are also surging in premarket trading this morning. Currently, GOOG stock is up nearly 12% after the company beat revenue expectations by nearly $2 billion for a total of $80.5 billion. But in addition to the revenue beat, Alphabet also announced it will pay its first dividend ever to shareholders. 

Microsoft on cloud nine

And finally, there is Microsoft, whose shares are up over 4% in premarket trading at the time of this writing after the company reported its Q3 2024 earnings yesterday. The Redmond giant beat revenue expectations by over a billion dollars on the strength of its commercial cloud services. 

Will the trend continue next week?

As for the remainder of the tech earnings season, there are two major tech giants left to report their earnings results. Amazon is up first on next Tuesday, April 30, followed by Apple on Thursday, May 2.

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