Meta and Microsoft better than estimates but down after accounts. Amazon OK. Google jumps

The company expects total revenues in the range of EUR 58 to 61 billion for the second quarter of the year. "A forecast," the company explains, "that takes into account the fact that currency exchange rates will have a positive impact of approximately 2% on year-on-year revenue growth.

Total expenses for the full year 2026 will be between EUR 162 and 169 billion, in line with previous forecasts. Overall, Meta estimates to generate a higher operating profit in 2026 than in 2025.

That being said, and despite the fact that profitability beat estimates, investors turned up their noses when they saw that Meta - on 2026 - wants to increase Capex to 135 billion (in the median forecast). A figure evidently considered excessive, so much so that the stock fell in the after hours.

Alphabet, for its part, saw turnover increase by 22% (19% at constant exchange rates) to EUR 109.9 billion. All major areas contributed to this figure, the company says.

Google Services revenues increased by 16% to EUR 89.6 billion, driven by growth of 19% in Google Search and other businesses, 19% in subscriptions, platforms and devices, and 11% in YouTube advertising.

Google Cloud saw a significant acceleration, with revenues up 63% to 20 billion. This trend was due to Google Cloud Platform's (Gcp) expansion into Artificial intelligence solutions for the enterprise, Ai infrastructure and core Gcp services . Net profits, then, rose 81% and EPS jumped 82% to $5.11.

Among all this data, the market, in the after hours, looked at the dynamics of cloud computing. The fact that - in a context of large investments for the company - the cloud accelerated was viewed positively and the stock went up

Overall solid figures for the company co-founded by Bill Gates. Turnover for the third quarter 2025 2026 was 82.9 billion, up 18% (+15% at constant exchange rates). Operating profit was 38.4 billion, up 20% (+16% at constant exchange rates).

Net profit, for its part, amounted to EUR 31.8 billion, up 23% on a GAAP basis and 20% on a non-GAAP basis (+18% at constant exchange rates).

Finally: diluted EPS is $4.27 (+23% on a GAAP basis and +21% on a non-GAAP basis which excludes the impact of the OpenAi investments)

"We are focused on providing cloud infrastructures and artificial intelligence solutions that enable every business to maximise its results in the era of agent computing," said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.

"Our Artificial Intelligence business exceeded an annual revenue pace of 37 billion, up 123% year-on-year," the manager concluded. In general, however, the quarterly report did not satisfy - at least in the after hours - traders who started selling.

It is a weakness of the stock which, on closer inspection, is not of now. Since the beginning of the year,' Barron's recalls, Microsoft has dropped about 12%. A drop partly caused by concerns that artificial intelligence models could replace key functions of traditional software.

The Redmond-based company, which has a huge enterprise software business, has to prove that it can attract strong demand for its Copilot AI product in order to alleviate such fears.

For the company founded by jeff Bezos, net sales - in the first quarter of 2026 - increased by 17% to 181.5 billion. Excluding the favourable impact of 2.9 billion from exchange rate changes, the increase is 15% compared to Q1 2025.

Operating profit, on the other hand, rose to EUR 23.9 billion, compared to EUR 18.4 billion in the same period of 2025.

Finally, net profit settled at USD 30.3 billion, or USD 2.78 per diluted share (it had been USD 1.59 a year ago). Free cash flow slowed down. This dropped to $1.2 billion over the past twelve months, mainly due to a year-on-year increase of $59.3 billion in investments in property, plant and equipment (net of proceeds from sales and incentives).

Beyond that, the focus of the market here too is on cloud computing. Amazon Web Services grew 28% year-on-year to 37.6 billion. The number is above Wall Street estimates and represents an acceleration from the 24% year-on-year growth recorded in the previous quarter.

The result, at first, was not enough. At the start of after hours, Amazon's shares lost 2%. Later, in the wake of the conference call with analysts, the shares recovered.

So far, some suggestions on the quarterly figures. On the whole, it should be emphasised, these are companies that, in terms of stock market performance, arrived at the numbers waltz in different ways. The proof? The multiples offered it.

According to the Bloomberg terminal as of 27/4/2026, Alphabet has a current price/earnings ratio of 37.3 times. A value, if one looks closely, that is higher than the annual average over the last 10 financial years.

Amazon, for its part, boasts a P/E that is practically in line with that of the parent company of the big 'G'. However, the comparison with the historical series is different. The company in question, in fact, had the indicator over 113 in the financial year 2022.

The latter is also a consequence of the Covid long wave on e-commerce and cloud computing.

Meta, on the other hand, is the big tech which - among the reporting entities - has the lowest multiple. The ratio of price to EPS stands at the level of 23. The number, however, is not the lowest level in the last decade.

In 2022, for example, the indicator - again according to the Bloomberg terminal - had slipped to 10.5 times.

Finally: Microsoft. The company c founded by Bill Gates boasts a current P/e of 28.3 times. That is to say, a value at the lower end of the same P/e range over the past 10 years.

Beyond that, and always considering that the current P/e reacts immediately to price changes, somewhat all four big techs considered are characterised by the same prospective trend. Which one? The one that sees the estimated multiple on the end of the current financial year lower than the current one. True!

The indicated characteristic is not uncommon when analysing the functioning of the relationship between price and earnings per share in some detail. Having said that, however, the trend described indicates that - albeit at different speeds related also to individual company histories - the market expects profits to continue to expand.

A condition which - as we have seen many times in the recent past - has a double meaning: positive when quarterly forecasts and outlooks beat market estimates; more than proportionally negative when numbers are lower.