Tech Earnings Were Strong, but AI Progress Has Been Slow

Technology stocks slumped into correction territory this past week, after a wave of poorly received earnings reports from some of the world’s largest companies. On Wednesday and Thursday, the Nasdaq Composite fell 4.1%, the tech-heavy index’s worst two-day stretch of the year. The index has fallen 12% since July.

But here’s the issue: The Street has been thinking that Google would leverage its prowess in AI software to boost its share of the cloud market. Google has unveiled a flurry of AI tools and services in recent months, including the Bard chatbot, which you can now use to search not just the web but also your own documents and emails. In fact, Google had been viewed as having deeper expertise in AI than rival Amazon Web Services.

After its stock outperformed on the week, Microsoft is now threatening Apple’s title as the world’s most valuable company—the gap is down to about $115 billion. Microsoft shares have outperformed Apple shares by nearly 10 percentage points this year. “Companies have moved more slowly in an uncertain economy in 2023 to complete deals,” Jassy said on the Amazon earnings call, “but we’re seeing the pace and volume of closed deals pick up and we’re encouraged by the strong last couple of months of new deals signed.”

The biggest third-quarter ad win came from an advertising upstart: Amazon’s ad sales were up 26%, to $12.1 billion. That’s more than 10 times the size of Snap’s total business, and more than 50% bigger than YouTube’s ad business. Meta sees 2024 capital spending of $30 billion to $35 billion, up roughly 15% from this year’s level. That’s a lot of dough, but the growth is actually slower than investors had anticipated, which is trouble for Arista Networks . The provider of networking gear counts on Meta and Microsoft for 50% of sales. Arista share fell 8% Thursday, trimming its valuation by nearly $5 billion.

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