The biggest 48 hours of Q1 earnings season starts tomorrow. Meta (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) all report Wednesday, April 29, after the close, with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) following Thursday, April 30.
The Capex Question
Combined 2026 AI infrastructure commitments are staggering: Meta guided $115 to $135 billion, Alphabet $175 to $185 billion, and Amazon roughly $200 billion. Microsoft’s last quarter alone saw capex hit $29.88 billion, up 89% year over year. The market needs to see cloud growth justifying that spend.
What’s Moving
Positioning is uneven into the reports. Meta is up 29% in one month, Amazon 31%, Google 28%. Microsoft is down 12% YTD, and Apple is down 1% YTD. Reddit’s wallstreetbets is calling it “the REAL WW3 on Wednesday at 4:01 PM”. I think Reddit nailed this one.
What to Watch
Four signals will dictate the move. Azure growth (last report was 39%), AWS (24%, fastest in 13 quarters), Google Cloud (48%), and Meta’s ad pricing (price per ad +6%). Apple’s tell is Services and Greater China, which jumped to $25.53 billion from $18.51 billion last quarter.
I’ve been holding Meta since 2022 and Google since 2012. The opportunity is in disconnects: if cloud growth holds and capex guidance does not balloon further, the stretched names get bid. If capex creeps higher without RPO backing it up (Microsoft’s commercial RPO sits at $625 billion), the AI ROI debate gets ugly fast. Friday’s report will tell us which narrative wins.
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