Meta, Amazon results delight investors; Apple falls
Meta Platforms and Amazon.com added a combined US$280 billion in stock market value late on Thursday after the Big Tech duo reported quarterly results that impressed investors, while Apple's value shrank by US$70 billion after its results. Meta's stock surged over 14 percent to a record high US$451 after the bell, elevating its market capitalisation by US$148 billion to US$1.16 trillion after the Facebook owner declared its first-ever dividend. While dividends are associated with mature, slow-growth companies, Meta delivered a 25 percent jump in revenue to US$40.1 billion for the December quarter, fuelled by robust advertising and device sales. Amazon's stock jumped 8 percent after the company beat December-quarter revenue expectations on strong growth in online spending during the critical holiday shopping season. That put the online shopping and cloud-computing heavyweight's market capitalisation at US$1.78 trillion. Apple's quarterly results beat analysts' expectations, but its sales in China missed estimates and its stock dipped 3.3 percent. Apple faces tough competition in China, which has worried Wall Street in recent months. Investor optimism about generative AI drove rallies in the US stock market's most valuable companies last year, with many hitting all-time highs in recent sessions. Microsoft in January eclipsed Apple as the world's most valuable company, with investors viewing Apple as lagging in the artificial-intelligence race between Wall Street's tech heavyweights. Asked on an investor call about generative AI, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "We've got some things that we're incredibly excited about that we'll be talking about later this year." Microsoft's lead over Apple in stock market value will probably grow over the next five years thanks to its early advantage in AI, 13 analysts consulted last week by Reuters unanimously agreed. "For Apple to be able to accelerate growth, we would need either a material contribution from new products like the Vision Pro or a generative AI driven cycle to come through the iPhone 16," DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria said following its results. Apple starts US sales of its Vision Pro mixed-reality headset on Friday. (Reuters)