Apple Beats Wall Street Estimates; Meta Stock Surges, Microsoft Plunges After Results

What’s Left for Magnificent Seven Earnings?

FROM 8 hr 4 min ago

With Apple’s results in the books for this quarter, the next round of results is due next week. 

Google parent Alphabet is scheduled to report on Wednesday, Feb. 4. Amazon’s numbers are due a day later.

Chip giant Nvidia will close down the quarter. Its results, perhaps the most closely watched of any company in the world, are set for release on Feb. 25.

–David Marino-Nachison

Some Smaller Apple Segments Saw Quarterly Sales Decline

FROM 8 hr 59 min ago

Strong iPhone sales, the company’s largest component, lifted Apple’s results in the latest quarter, though not all segments saw gains.

iPhone sales rose 23% year-over-year. iPad and services sales also rose year-over-year in the quarter, while Mac and Wearables/Home/Accessories sales dipped.

Wall Street expected growth in all five categories, according to Visible Alpha data.

–David Marino-Nachison

Apple’s iPhone Revenue Tops $85B, Beats Estimates

FROM 9 hr 3 min ago

Apple reported more than $85 billion in quarterly revenue for its iPhone segment, its largest by far.

The company said iPhone sales were $85.3 billion, up 23% year-over-year. That accounted for about 60% of the company’s quarterly revenue.

“iPhone had its best-ever quarter driven by unprecedented demand, with all-time records across every geographic segment,” CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.

Wall Street was looking for a bit less than $79 billion in iPhone sales, according to Visible Alpha data.

–David Marino-Nachison

Apple Beats Expectations on Revenue, Profit

FROM 9 hr 12 min ago

Shares of Apple rose in after-hours trading Thursday after the tech giant reported fiscal first-quarter financial results that beat Street expectations for sales and net income.

Apple’s stock, down about 5% for the year as of today’s close, were recently up about 2%.

The company said first-quarter (ended Dec. 27) revenue was 143.8 billion, ahead of Wall Street’s $138.1 billion expectation according to Visible Alpha, while net income was $42.1 billion, beating the consensus expectation of $39.5 billion.

–David Marino-Nachison

Apple Stock Down in 2026 Ahead of Earnings

FROM 9 hr 26 min ago

Shares of Apple, the giant iPhone maker and digital services company, are down for the year heading into its next quarter earnings report, due shortly.

The stock rose about 0.7% on Thursday, leaving it off about 5% for the year.

It’s also below Wall Street’s consensus price target as calculated by Visible Alpha. That target, near $293, is about 13% above today’s close.

–David Marino-Nachison

Memory, Semicap Stocks Dodge Tech Sell-Off

FROM 9 hr 46 min ago

The AI trade on Thursday looked a lot like the AI trade over the past month. 

Software stocks sold off on jitters about AI’s potential to upend the industry. Meanwhile, most of the tech stocks that have seen the biggest boost from AI this year—data storage device makers and chip-manufacturing equipment makers—were up again. 

Shares of Lam Research Corp. (LRCX) rose more than 3% Thursday after the company, which makes equipment used to manufacture advanced semiconductors, reported better-than-expected quarterly results and issued an upbeat outlook. Thursday’s gains extended a blistering run-up in the stock. Shares are up more than 200% in the past 12 months, and about 45% this year alone. 

The AI boom has spurred demand for the tools supplied by Lam Research and competitors like Netherlands-based ASML Holdings (ASML), Applied Materials (AMAT), and KLA Corp. (KLA). All four closed in the green on Thursday.

Firms making memory chips and data storage devices are also experiencing a surge in demand from AI data centers. A memory device shortage has driven up prices and, subsequently, sales and profits at companies like Micron (MU), Sandisk (SNDK), and Western Digital (WDC).

Sandisk stock rose more than 2% Thursday, while competitor Seagate Technology (STX) gained 1% and Micron closed marginally higher. Western Digital dipped 0.5%. All four stocks have risen more than 40% this year, with Sandisk more than doubling in value in the last four weeks.

–Colin Laidley

Microsoft’s $400 Billion Rout Among the Worst on Record

FROM 10 hr 10 min ago

Microsoft is on its way to booking a dubious distinction.

Microsoft (MSFT) stock was recently down about 11%, wiping about $400 billion off the tech giant’s market capitalization. That would be the second largest one-day market cap loss on record, surpassed only by Nvidia’s (NVDA) $590 billion loss during last January’s DeepSeek panic. 

Thursday’s losses put Microsoft’s market capitalization at about $3.15 trillion, a handsome sum but about $1.5 trillion less than Nvidia, currently the world’s most valuable company. 

Microsoft was itself the world’s most valuable company as recently as July, but its stock stalled in the middle of last year while Google-parent Alphabet (GOOG) and iPhone maker Apple (AAPL) rose. As of Thursday, Microsoft is America’s fourth most-valuable company. 

–Colin Laidley

Software Stocks Sink Under Weight of AI Concerns

FROM 11 hr 13 min ago

Software stocks plummeted Thursday despite solid earnings from enterprise software giants ServiceNow and Microsoft, underscoring Wall Street’s uncertainty about the industry’s future in the AI era. 

Microsoft (MSFT) and ServiceNow (NOW) shares were both down abut 12% Thursday afternoon, leading software stocks lower. The carnage rippled through the software space, with Workday (WDAY), Datadog (DDOG), and Intuit (INTU) all down about 8%, while shares of Salesforce (CRM) slumped 7%. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) was recently down nearly 6%, putting the fund on track to post its worst day since last year’s “Liberation Day.” 

Microsoft on Wednesday reported revenue and earnings ahead of Wall Street expectations, but investors were focused on a slight slowdown in Azure growth, which investors are treating as a proxy for AI revenue. ServiceNow topped profit and revenue estimates, but the results did little to allay concerns about the company’s organic growth. 

Even before Thursday’s sell-off, software stocks were among the worst performers in the S&P 500 this year amid concerns about AI-driven disruption. Investors worry that the emergence of “vibe coding,” in which AI writes code based on a user’s plain language prompts, could undercut enterprise software demand. Though some investors insist the market’s wrong to think AI is a threat to software. 

–Colin Laidley

Meta Shares Soar as AI Efforts Pay Off

FROM 12 hours ago

Meta Platforms is the only company in the Magnificent 7 living up to the name today.

Shares of the social media giant were recently up more than 10%, and at year-to-date highs, after last night’s fourth-quarter earnings report beat Wall Street estimates across metrics, suggesting that its efforts in artificial intelligence are paying off.

Investors rewarded Meta (META) for the news: Its stock is among the top gainers in the S&P 500, and it’s the only member of the group of seven big U.S. tech stocks climbing. The rest—Nvidia (NVDA), Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN) and Tesla (TSLA)—were mostly sliding, while Apple (AAPL) was clinging to small gains ahead of its earnings release tonight.

Upbeat sentiment around Meta is pushing analysts to produce glowing reports and raise their price targets, distributing optimistic perspectives on its efforts to raise engagement and improve monetization with the help of machine-learning. All 24 analysts tracked by Visible Alpha have a buy rating on the stock; their mean price target, $868, implies upside of 20% from recent prices.

“We have a balance of new things that we’re trying to do, while also investing very heavily in making sure that all of the work that we’re doing in AI improves both the quality and business performance of the core apps and businesses that we run there,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, per a conference-call transcript provided by AlphaSense.

Meta’s fourth quarter earnings per share of $8.88, beat Visible Alpha estimates of $8.24. Revenue for the quarter hit $59.9 billion, above estimates for $58.4 billion. The company’s revenue guidance for the quarter started in January, of $53.5 billion to $56.5 billion, also beat Street expectations. It plans to roll out a number of new AI models and products this year.

“Meta has the potential to monetize its AI assistant, Meta AI across several use cases, including AI agents for businesses, deeper automation of advertiser tools & creative, and ongoing integration of genAI capabilities into Meta hardware products,” Wedbush’s team, including Scott Devitt and Dan Ives, wrote in a report Thursday. They raised their price target on the stock to $900 from $880 previously.

Meta’s AI capabilities and planned rollouts are eliciting optimism from analysts as they extrapolate future growth potential from the recent quarter. Meta AI, its multilingual virtual assistant integrated across the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp as well as its Ray-Ban glasses, reached over one billion monthly active users.

Morgan Stanley analysts led by Brian Nowak said Meta’s engagement and monetization improvements in the fourth quarter, as well as its plans to continue raising the bar, gives them “confidence” that its revenue growth will accelerate going forward. They raised their price target on the stock to $825 from $750. Jefferies analysts raised their price target by $90 to $1000.

The company’s capital expenditure guide for this year—$162 billion to $169 billion—exceeded Street estimates of around $151 billion, likely raising some eyebrows. But based on investors’ reaction today, Meta’s work is getting the green light.

–Crystal Kim

Here’s How to Stream Today’s Big Tech Earnings Call

FROM 12 hr 27 min ago

Another Magnificent 7 company reports earnings today, setting up another closely watched conference call—this time, with Apple CEO Tim Cook. (Should you listen in? Here’s Investopedia’s take.)

Apple’s call is set to start at 5 p.m. ET; you can listen to it here.

–David Marino-Nachison

How Much Traders Expect Apple to Move After Earnings

FROM 12 hr 48 min ago

Options trading data suggests Apple’s (AAPL) stock could move about 4% in either direction by the end of the week. A move of that size from Wednesday’s close around $256 could lift the stock to $266 at the high end, 7% off its December record, while the low end would put shares around $247.

Apple shares are currently about 11% below their early December highs reached amid positive signals about the global smartphone market and demand for the iPhone 17. The tech giant topped estimates in its last report in October, when CEO Tim Cook said Apple looked to be on track for its best-ever holiday season for iPhone sales.

Apple is seen posting record revenue of $138.11 billion, while earnings per share are projected to come in at $2.67, each up 11% year-over-year, according to Visible Alpha estimates.

Analysts at JPMorgan, UBS, and Morgan Stanley recently said that an ongoing memory chip shortage has raised some concerns about Apple’s margins, however. Though they suggested the impact on Apple may be limited, they warned solid iPhone results could potentially be overshadowed by worries about rising memory costs.

Wall Street analysts lean more bullish than bearish on Apple’s stock. Of the eight analysts with current ratings tracked by Visible Alpha, four have recommended buying the stock, compared to three neutral ratings and one “sell.” Their average price target around $291 would imply 14% upside from Wednesday’s level and is about $5 above the stock’s closing record.

–Aaron McDade

Why Microsoft Shares Are Plunging Today

FROM 13 hr 4 min ago

Microsoft (MSFT) shares are taking a big hit after the company reported earnings yesterday.

The shares were down 12% at around $425 in recent trading, leading losses on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq 100. (Read Investopedia’s full coverage of today’s trading here.)

While Microsoft’s quarterly revenue and earnings topped analysts’ estimates, worries about the tech giant’s cloud growth, coupled with its rising spending on AI and reliance on a few large customers, weighed on the shares.

Morgan Stanley analysts said that while growth from Microsoft’s Azure cloud narrowly beat the company’s guidance, it grew slower than many on Wall Street anticipated.

During the company’s earnings call, CFO Amy Hood stressed that Microsoft’s cloud growth has been held back by capacity constraints, and that Microsoft is investing in building out its AI infrastructure to meet demand, but its higher-than-expected spending has added to concerns.

Microsoft also revealed that nearly half of its backlog was attributable to OpenAI. Jefferies analyst Brent Thill said on CNBC following the results that the detail underscored worries about concentration risks and OpenAI’s ability to pay its hundreds of billions of dollars in commitments.

Still, Jefferies and Morgan Stanley said they said they see gains ahead for the shares. Though analysts’ ratings are in flux, most have bullish ratings for Microsoft, with 14 of the 15 analysts tracked by Visible Alpha calling the stock a “buy,” compared to one neutral rating. Their average price target around $598 would imply over 40% upside from the stock’s recent level.

–Aaron McDade