The Nasdaq composite’s ride to new all-time highs is demonstrative of a new era in US tech company dominance within the US stock market. It was no coincidence that the tech-heavy index broke its highs set at the peak of the dot-com bubble in a week when some of its core components were reporting another quarter of huge earnings growth.
It wasn’t a great day for Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) on Thursday which closed lower after missing revenue estimates as higher expenses ate into profits. Nevertheless expectations were running high for Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) which reported quarterly results after the close, with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) to report on Monday.
Google shares are expected to open higher despite the company missing analyst estimates for profit and revenue growth. Underlying performance was better if you take out the strong dollar-impact, and the explanation that YouTube video ads account for the bulk of the fall in aggregate cost per click was encouraging for Google’s core search and display advertising business.
Afterhours trading suggests shares of Amazon should see a big boost on the open after the company reported a huge beat of analyst revenue forecasts while the losses for the quarter were in line with estimates. Amazon’s flagrant disregard for making a profit to achieve massive revenue growth leaves you swinging between condemnation and commendation.
The stand-out bit of information in this release was the performance of the company’s web services, which rose 49% to $41.57bn in the quarter. The outperformance in web services helps placate the wasted efforts in areas like its unpopular Amazon Fire smartphone.
Shares of Microsoft are set for a higher open after the company beat top and bottom line estimates, with profits falling less than expected over the year. The strong performance in cloud computing, the area that CEO Satya Nadella is trying to steer the company towards was most encouraging for a company still trying to deal with the era of mobile-computing.
The US economy will be in focus as well as earnings on Friday with durable goods for March reported at 1.30pm BST. Markets have been on a tear, encouraged by the idea that the Fed may hold off hiking rates for longer due to a spate of poor economic data. Durable goods orders are expected to rise in March after months of declines and could dent the idea of a later Fed rate hike.
Futures suggest the:
S&P 500 will open 4 points higher at 2,116 with the
Dow Jones expected to open 23 points higher at 18,081 and the
Nasdaq 100 40 points higher at 4,477.
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