Tech giants lift Wall Street after strong quarterly results – E24

Alphabet and Microsoft jumped on the stock market after beating expectations last quarter, driving the Nasdaq index up more than two percent.

There has been a good mood in the US stock markets on Friday, and the rise increased throughout the trading day. The technology-heavy Nasdaq index led the rise throughout the day.

This is how it looks at closing time at 22:00 Norwegian time:

• The collective index S&P 500 rose 1.02 percent.
• The technology index Nasdaq rose 2.03 percent.
• The Dow Jones index ended up 0.40 percent.

Quarterly results from many large and well-known companies have characterized the stock market week. The technology giants Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla have all presented quarterly figures in recent days.

– We end a volatile week in a strong way, says Mona Mahajan, senior adviser at Edward Jones, to CNBC.

– It’s nice to see green numbers on the screen. One of the drivers has obviously been the brilliant quarterly reports from the technology giants, she continues.

Next week, Apple and Amazon, among others, will present their quarterly figures.

First dividend from Alphabet

Google’s owner company beat expectations when they presented figures for the first quarter after closing time last night.

Revenues increased to 80.5 billion dollars, and the result after tax of 23.7 billion was markedly up from the same time last year.

At the same time, Alphabet announced that the company will pay dividends for the first time. The first dividend will be NOK 0.20 per share, and the company plans to distribute quarterly dividends in the future. In addition, the board has approved expanding the share buyback program by an additional $70 billion.

The Alphabet share climbed 9.97 percent.

Microsoft beat expectations

Another of the technology giants, Microsoft, also presented quarterly figures on Thursday evening.

Microsoft delivered better than expected both at the top and bottom of the accounts. Revenues came in at $61.9 billion in the first quarter, while adjusted earnings per share landed at $2.94. The company’s cloud revenues increased by 23 percent compared to the previous year.

The Microsoft share rose 1.82 percent.

Several of the largest American technology companies have had a strong development on the stock exchange in the past year. Microsoft, Alphabet and Facebook owner Meta are all betting heavily on AI, while computer chip manufacturer Nvidia has had a particularly strong upturn due to the AI ​​wave.

Snap shot up

Snapchat owner Snap is also getting a lift after posting results. The share often has large effects after the release of figures.

The Snap share ended up 27.58 percent.

Revenue of $1.19 billion and a profit that was barely in the red were both better than expected. It is nevertheless strong guidance that is highlighted as decisive for the share.

There are also several other well-known names that have released quarterly figures:

• The Intel share fell 9.2 percent. The computer chip manufacturer had slightly weaker sales than expected, while the result was slightly stronger than analysts had predicted. At the same time, the company’s own estimates for revenue and profit in the second quarter were weaker than expected, CNBC points out.
• The oil company Exxon fell 2.86 percent. The company’s result in the quarter was weaker than expected, writes Bloomberg. This is due to, among other things, higher costs related to refineries, and different accounting related to, among other things, tax and inventory.
• The oil company Chevron, which also presented figures today, fell by 0.4 per cent.

Price growth is staying up

On Friday, the new US inflation figure came in, which ended up slightly higher than expected.

Price growth came in at 2.7 per cent in March on an annual basis, recent PCE figures showed. PCE inflation is the US Federal Reserve’s preferred way of measuring inflation. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, remained at 2.8 per cent.

Price inflation in the US has calmed down from high levels, but recently the decline has stopped. At the same time, the labor market has remained tight and the economy in general has performed relatively well.

Belief in interest rate cuts has steadily diminished, and expectations about the first interest rate cut have been pushed back in time. The market is now pricing in only about a 10 percent chance of an interest rate cut in June, and the first interest rate cut will not be priced in until November.

There was a decline on Wall Street yesterday, after several key figures were released. GDP figures showed that the US economy grew less than expected in the first quarter, but analysts primarily pointed to an update on inflation. PCE inflation for the full first quarter climbed more than expected

The next interest rate decision from the US central bank will come on Wednesday 1 May.