Tech stocks on Wall Street defied sticky inflation Friday to post their biggest gain in more than two months—easing market anxiety about a slowdown in economic activities—after blockbuster first-quarter earnings and continued betting on artificial intelligence fired up the valuations of major companies.
Key facts
- The Nasdaq, which is the benchmark index for tech companies, rose 2% by 4 PM ET, hitting its highest point since February 22, while the S&P 500 increased by 1%.
- The market rally came after Microsoft and Alphabet both reported first-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street expectations, according to FactSet, with the world’s largest company Microsoft recording $61.9 billion in revenue and the search engine giant ending the quarter with $80.5 billion sales.
- Microsoft shares were up 2% to $408 per share Friday, while Alphabet surged more than 10% to $175 per share to book a record $2.2 trillion market valuation after launching a cash dividend of $0.20 per share and announcing a $70 billion stock buyback plan.
- Amazon ended its two-day losing streak to deliver a 3.5% gain to trade at $180 per share, as it appears investors are positioning themselves in the tech giant ahead of the April 30 earnings report that’s expected at 82 cents per share from 31 cents a year ago.
- With Nvidia’s biggest clients betting on continued artificial intelligence investments, shares of the computer chip-making company rallied 6.2% to $877 per share, recovering from last week’s sell-offs to mark its biggest daily gain since March 12.
Big number
$317 billion. That’s how much money investors gained on tech stocks following Friday’s rally.
Critical quote
The earnings reports of big tech companies like Microsoft and Alphabet showed their commitment to AI.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly said the company offers AI accelerators including “the latest from Nvidia,” while Alphabet offers “industry-leading portfolio of NVIDIA GPUs” together with its in-house TPUs, Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said during the first-quarter earnings call.
Tangent
Inflation remained unchanged at 2.8% in March from the previous month, but stayed well above the consensus economic expectations of 2.7%.
The hotter-than-expected inflation figure added to concerns around the economy, which began this year with the slowest pace of expansion since the second quarter of 2022.
Key background
Stock investors usually look out for strong earnings growth, as it could indicate a company’s capacity to generate future cash flows and sustain both capital gains on investment and dividend payouts.
With Microsoft and Alphabet beating Wall Street earnings estimates in the first quarter of 2024, forecast of increased Amazon sales when it releases its report by April 30, together with indications of continued usage of Nvidia AI hardwares by major clients, it appears investors are upbeat about the growth potential of the big tech companies.
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
