Tech Titans Propel Markets: Microsoft and Meta Smash Earnings Expectations

Wall Street surges as Big Tech flexes muscle—Microsoft and Meta obliterate analyst forecasts, sending indices soaring. Another quarter, another reminder of who really controls the financial markets.

Microsoft’s cloud revenue soars 24%, while Meta’s ad machine churns out cash despite Zuckerberg’s metaverse money pit. Investors cheer—because when the tech duopoly wins, the market pretends everything’s fine.

Bonus jab: Traders suddenly remember fundamentals matter... but only when the numbers justify their FOMO.

Traders ignore shrinking GDP, buy into market reversal

Earlier in the day, the market wasn’t this confident. Wall Street had started the session off messy. By mid-morning, the S&P 500 had dropped more than 2%, and the Dow fell over 780 points.

Then everything reversed. By the closing bell, both indexes finished in the green, and it wasn’t based on solid fundamentals either. It was panic first, then buy-the-dip.

Part of that panic came from fresh data out of the Commerce Department. The latest read showed gross domestic product shrinking at a rate of 0.3% on an annualized basis. That’s the first quarter of negative growth since early 2022.

Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones were looking for a 0.4% increase. They didn’t get it. Instead, the economy slid backward. But traders ignored it, choosing instead to chase beaten-down names into the close.

That volatility marked the final trading day of April, which has been brutal. Stocks got rocked after President Donald Trump dropped a “reciprocal” tariff announcement on April 2. He later walked back the harshest ones, but the damage was already done.

At one point, the S&P 500 had dropped more than 20% from its February record, enough to qualify as a bear market. The index closed the month still down 9% from its high.

The Dow and S&P 500 didn’t recover enough to save the month. The Dow lost 3.2%, while the S&P dropped 0.8%. Only the Nasdaq Composite escaped with gains, finishing April up 0.9%.

Fed expectations shift while trading volume lags

On the Federal Reserve front, traders now expect the central bank to slash interest rates by a full percentage point before the end of the year. However, recent remarks from Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials suggest that they will be very slow to act. There’s no guarantee those cuts will happen anytime soon.

Wednesday also marked the 100th day of Trump’s return to the White House. Since he took office, his trade policies, tariff threats, and nonstop political stunts have canceled out any early hope for deregulation or tax breaks. Whatever boost markets felt after his November win has completely evaporated. Volatility is what’s left.

The numbers confirmed how rough the session was, even if it ended in green. On the NYSE, declining stocks beat advancers by a 1.19-to-1 ratio. On the Nasdaq, it was worse – 1.28-to-1. The S&P 500 notched 10 new 52-week highs and 3 new lows. But the Nasdaq Composite had 39 new highs and a staggering 85 new lows.

And volume? Down. Total trading across US exchanges came in at 16.97 billion shares, way below the 20-day average of 19.57 billion. That’s not exactly a sign of confidence. It just proves how spooked everyone still is, even with a rally on the board.

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