Katarzyna Petru
Yesterday evening on Wall Street brought a real rollercoaster. Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft — the three pillars of Big Tech — announced their quarterly results, but the reactions from investors were extremely varied.
Meta: AI worth billions and a massive drop in stock
Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) has announced a gigantic increase in spending on artificial intelligence. This year’s capital expenditure budget (capex) is set to be 70–72 billion dollars, compared to the previous range of 66–72 billion. However, this is just the beginning – the company warned that spending in 2026 will be "significantly larger" than what is planned for 2025, which is already set to increase by 30 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg defended the decision, stating:
“This is the right strategy – it’s better to aggressively build infrastructure now to be ready for the most optimistic scenarios.”
The market did not share this enthusiasm. Meta's stock fell over 8% in after-hours trading, representing a loss of approximately 160 billion dollars in market capitalization – this is the second largest drop in the company’s history.
Alphabet: first time over 100 billion in revenue
Google (more precisely, Alphabet) surprisingly performed very positively – quarterly revenue exceeded 100 billion dollars for the first time in history. Net profits also surpassed analysts' forecasts, and investors responded enthusiastically. Alphabet's shares rose by over 6% after the session closed, making the company the biggest winner of report Wednesday.
Microsoft: solid, but without euphoria
Microsoft also delivered better-than-expected financial results, however, the growth in the Azure segment – crucial for cloud and AI – did not meet the market's most optimistic expectations. This slight disappointment came despite the recent news of a new agreement with OpenAI, which is set to increase computing power for artificial intelligence models.
As a result, Microsoft's stock fell by 3.6%, even though the results themselves were decent.
What does it all mean?
Meta is going all in — betting everything on AI, risking short-term drops in stock price.
Alphabet confirms its dominance in advertising and cloud services, gaining investors' trust.
Microsoft remains stable, but the market expected a bigger "AI boom" effect.
Investors apparently prefer sensible expansion (Alphabet) today over "all-in on AI" (Meta).
Summary
Company | After-hours price change | Main reasons |
|---|---|---|
Meta | ▼ −8% | Aggressive spending on AI, warning of increased capex in 2026 |
Alphabet | ▲ +6% | Record revenue (over $100 billion) |
Microsoft | ▼ −3.6% | Slower Azure growth than anticipated |
Meta went all in on AI and got hit by the market. Alphabet celebrates record revenue, while Microsoft — despite solid results — must contend with rising expectations.
