By Caitlin McCabe

This week was Big Tech's earnings gauntlet: Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple all reported in a two-day stretch. The results were strong but the stock moves told a more complicated story.

Alphabet got the best response from investors, with the Google parent's shares flying 10% higher Thursday. Meta was on the other end of the spectrum, losing around 8.6%.

Meanwhile, Apple stock was up 3% premarket Friday, signaling investors liked what they saw from the iPhone maker.

So why all the divergence in stock reactions?

The big takeaway from Big Tech's earnings is that traders aren't just looking for strong results anymore. Instead, it's all about whether they'll see future payback on AI spending.

Alphabet gave the clearest signal that its AI investments are paying off. It reported a 63% rise in quarterly sales at its cloud-computing unit, driven by AI services.

Traders didn't take such comfort from Meta, which raised its capital-spending target for this year by $10 billion to a new range of $125 billion to $145 billion.

Apple, meanwhile, seems to have settled into a sweet spot with investors-at least for now. While the company's AI offerings are lagging behind it peers, the company also isn't asking investors to swallow a big bill. Even more, Apple yesterday enhanced its capital-return program, boosting its dividend and authorizing up to $100 billion in share buybacks.

In brief remarks on the company's earnings call Thursday, Apple's next chief executive, John Ternus, said he will maintain Tim Cook's deliberate approach to financial decisions.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 01, 2026 07:03 ET (11:03 GMT)

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