Meta Tumbles, Microsoft Slides, Alphabet Soars After Mag 7 Earnings Deluge

Following the Fed decision, attention shifted to after-hours earnings reports from the "Mag 7" tech companies. Alphabet's earnings and revenue exceeded expectations, driven by strong cloud growth and AI demand, leading to a significant stock jump. Alphabet's cloud division revenue was $15.16 billion, with a substantial Google Cloud backlog of $155 billion. The company's FY capex guide was increased to $91-93 billion for AI data centers and custom chips. Meta reported strong revenue growth but missed EPS estimates due to a $15.93 billion tax charge, causing its stock to decline. Meta also increased its expected expenses and capital expenditures for the coming periods. Microsoft also reported revenue beats, however, Azure cloud growth expectations were not met, concerning investors. Additionally, increased spending on AI infrastructure concerned investors, despite the cloud computing business growth from its OpenAI partnership. Microsoft's capital expenditures significantly increased, indicating greater data center spending. Overall, the market reacted positively to Alphabet's results but negatively to Meta's and Microsoft's earnings.