The four big tech stocks are all expected to win in Q1: Alphabet +6%, Meta -5%

U.S. tech’s four major stocks—Microsoft (Microsoft), Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Meta, and Amazon—synchronously released their latest quarterly earnings reports after the U.S. market close on April 29. According to Yahoo Finance’s compilation, all four beat Wall Street’s consensus expectations. However, the after-hours stock price reaction was clearly split—Alphabet led the gain up about 6%, Meta fell by more than 5% after the company raised its capital expenditure guidance and triggered concerns, while Microsoft and Amazon each dropped by about 3%.

A quick look at the four key numbers

Company Revenue YoY EPS Cloud / Core business After-hours Microsoft (FY26 Q3) 82.9B +18% (constant currency) $4.27 (market $4.06) Azure +40% (guidance 37-38%) -3% Alphabet (CY26 Q1) 109.9B +22% Operating profit 39.69B Google Cloud +63% ($20.03B) +6% Meta (CY26 Q1) 56.31B +33% (fastest since 2021) Market $545M Ads $55B +33% -5% Amazon (CY26 Q1) 181.5B +17% $2.78 (market $1.65) AWS +28% ($37.59B) -3%

Judging purely by revenue and profit versus expectations, all four beat Wall Street consensus. But the divergence in market reactions reflects that investors’ focus is no longer just “beat or miss”—it’s how fast the cloud business is accelerating, whether AI investment is translating into revenue, and whether the capital expenditure guidance raise is reasonable.

Cloud and AI capex: three accelerate, Meta cuts toward capital discipline

Cloud business is the most differentiated indicator this quarter. Alphabet’s Google Cloud posted quarterly revenue of $20.03B, up 63% year over year, well above market expectations. In addition, backlog increased by about one full quarter’s worth to more than $46B. This figure directly indicates the predictability of the coming few quarters and is also the main reason for Alphabet’s big after-hours surge. Microsoft Azure grew 40% year over year, exceeding the top end of the company’s own 37-38% guidance and the market’s 39.3% expectation. Annualized revenue (ARR) from its AI business has already surpassed $37B, up 123% year over year. Microsoft 365 Copilot business seats expanded from 15M in January to more than 20M in April. Amazon AWS grew 28% year over year, with revenue of $37.59B, the fastest growth in more than three years; the market expected only 26%.

The capex portion is where Meta triggered concerns. Meta raised its 2026 full-year capital expenditure guidance from the prior $115B-$135B to $125B-$145B. Both the lower and upper bounds were raised by $10B. The company attributed this to “rising component prices and additional data center costs.” Microsoft’s Q3 capex reached $31.9B, with two-thirds invested in short-lived assets such as GPUs and CPUs. The CFO estimates FY2026 full-year capex will reach $190B, mainly due to a surge in memory prices.

Meta Reality Labs revenue was $402M, down 2% year over year (Quest headset sales declined, with AI glasses partially offsetting), while 2025 losses were $19.2B. The 2026 loss forecast is of a similar magnitude and is also expected to be a peak year.

After-hours reaction and what to watch next

The after-hours divergence clearly reflects the core narrative of whether “capital expenditures and AI revenue move in the same direction.” Alphabet synchronized a clearer path of accelerating cloud revenue with investments in AI infrastructure, and the market gave a positive response. Meta, while achieving the fastest revenue growth since 2021, raised capex for two consecutive quarters, its Q2 revenue guidance landed at $58B-$61B—close to analysts’ $59.5B estimate—and lacked any additional upside surprise. The market reflected doubts about the “input-output efficiency” through a stock price decline. Although Microsoft and Amazon each beat expectations, Microsoft’s Q4 revenue guidance midpoint was slightly below the market consensus of $87.53B. Amazon’s Q2 guidance was $194B-$199B for revenue and $20B-$24B for operating profit. Overall, it was “beat in line with expectations, with no additional surprises,” and after-hours shares also fell roughly 3%.

What to watch next: the conversion pace of Alphabet’s $46B cloud backlog; whether Microsoft Azure can sustain the 40% acceleration into Q4; when Meta’s raised capex starts contributing to ad monetization efficiency; and whether AWS’s 28% growth rate can hold steady. Apple will release its FY26 Q2 earnings report in the early hours of May 1 Taiwan time—this will be the last major tech stock earnings report of the week.

This article, four major tech stocks all win in Q1 expectations: Alphabet +6%, Meta -5%, first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.