Alphabet, Microsoft and Now Meta Release Disappointing Quarterly Earnings

Meta joined Alphabet and Microsoft in releasing disappointing quarterly financials, following the company’s Q2 earnings call. In a week of a disappointment for mega-cap stocks, the trio has all missed revenue and earnings expectations, with Meta seeing its first quarterly sales decline ever recorded.

Economic Slowdown

Due to the current global economic slowdown, markets had anticipated that earnings of mega-cap stocks which account for 40% of the Nasdaq, and 30% of the S&P 500 could face a bloodbath.

However, although earnings have disappointed, and came in worse-than expected across the board, some analysts suggest that the situation might have been more dire.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently announced that it was revising its 2022 global GDP forecast, from 3.6% at the start of April, to now expecting growth of 3.2% for the remainder of the year.

This seems to have been reflected in the earnings report released by three of the world’s largest tech companies.

Alphabet

Alphabet, the parent company of Google was one of the first companies to release earnings this week, with figures falling short of expectations.

The company reported revenue for the second quarter had risen by 13% to $69.7 billion, which was lower than the expected $70.8 billion.

Q2 earnings came in at $1.21 per share, which was less than the consensus of $1.27 per share for the quarter.

Microsoft

Microsoft also fell short of expectations, with both earnings and revenue figures disappointing for Q2.

The company founded by Bill Gates reported that earnings came in at $2.23 per share, versus general expectations of $2.29 per share.

Quarterly revenue was reported at $51.87 billion, which was less than the $52.44 billion analyst had forecasted.

Meta

Finally Meta, formerly Facebook, also reported disappointing financial results for the second quarter of the year.

They confirmed that revenue totaled $28.82 billion for April – June, which was marginally lower than the anticipated $28.94 billion.

EPS, earnings per share was reported at $2.46, versus hopes of $2.56 per share,which comes despite daily active users on Facebook climbing to 1.97 billion versus 1.95 billion expected.

Following the earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerburg stated that, “We seem to have entered an economic downturn that will have a broad impact on the digital advertising business”.

Amazon and Apple are the next two mega-cap stocks to release their earnings later today, do you expect this trend to continue?