On Thursday, the stock market jumped as investors cheered the recent earnings reports from the big four tech companies. Meta Platforms and Microsoft inspired notably heavy speculation among traders. Despite an initial dip in Meta’s stock during the trading day, it surged significantly in after-hours trading, reflecting strong market sentiment. On the other hand, Microsoft’s various business divisions announced record breaking revenues, injecting even more confidence into the stock market.
Meta’s $META stock was down 1% at the close of regular trading, but impressive after-hours activity boosted it up 5.2% to $576.75. This positive trend extended into the following trading day, as Meta’s stock jumped 8 points further to $584.90. Market watch Analysts believe that the company’s strong after-hours performance is a positive indicator of investor confidence about the company’s future prospects.
Likewise, Microsoft announced blowout earnings in all of its business segments, leading to a huge jump in its stock price. The Intelligent Cloud business soared with a fantastic growth of 21%. At the same time, the Personal Computing sector continued a full quarter of uninterrupted growth at 6%. Moreover, Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Processes segment was up 10%. These stellar results ushered in a $23 bump to Microsoft’s stock in after-hours trading, closing at $418.55. The next morning, it continued its upward trajectory, adding another $10 to close at $428.50.
Considering that Microsoft’s capital expenditures missed the overall mark, coming in at $21.4 billion — $1 billion short of what analysts had expected. Even with this modest miss on spending expectations, market reactions were still positive given the stronger-than-expected earnings’ performance.
Earnings season is well underway and other large companies—both in the transport industry and beyond—are rapidly approaching their own earnings releases. Amazon and Apple top all the high-profile names that are slated to announce their earnings after the bell. On deck now are EOG Resources, Roku, Lumen Technologies, Amgen, American International Group (AIG), GoDaddy. We look forward to their final announcements, so stay tuned!
On top of these reports, more than 40 key earnings announcements are scheduled for the morning. Major players set to report include Xerox, The Hershey Company, Dominion Energy, Roblox, Shake Shack, Iron Mountain, Moderna, Eli Lilly, Air Products and Chemicals, Southern Company, Estée Lauder, CVS Health, Parker-Hannifin and United States Steel.
Even as these earnings reports unfold, analysts and investors remain vigilant to broader market trends. Further afield, oil prices have been extremely volatile, and are now trading at $6.75/b lower — a fall of 24% since January 20. This new and complex state of affairs stems from the downturn in oil prices—that much is complicated enough.
The DJIA is down ‑4.4%. In contrast, during the same time period the S&P 500 has dropped by 5.3%. The Nasdaq Composite has done even worse, down 9.6% on the year, and the Russell 2000 is down 12%. These figures underscore an extremely hostile climate for investors to find their way through a confusing barrage of contradictory economic data and sector trends.
Market sentiment continues to be cautiously optimistic as investors continue to digest the latest earnings news and look forward to more. Warren Buffett’s perspective on investing resonates during this period of volatility:
“The best investors in the world are really good at doing nothing for long periods of time.” – Uncle Warren Buffet