Frightful Five Add $181B To Wall Street

With technology earnings in full swing, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook all added billions of dollars in market value last week alone.

According to a news report in CNBC, the technology leaders added a combined $181 billion in market value last Friday, as investors rewarded Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon for posting September quarter-ending earnings that surpassed Wall Street’s estimates. CNBC noted that during the past year, the five technology leaders have added a total of close to $900 billion in market capitalization as the stocks continue to surge throughout 2017. The five stocks have also outperformed the S&P 500 so far this year, and have contributed 15 percent of the index’s gains.

Microsoft’s market cap just recently surpassed $600 billion, marking the first time since the dot-com boom. When it reported earnings last week, it was able to surpass analyst views, which sent the stock surging. It also beat its own forecast in the cloud computing market.

This all comes despite political backlash against the technology companies and the expectation that regulations will be increasing. There are concerns among lawmakers and some regulators that the five technology giants are controlling too much data and hurting competition.

As an example, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google are the leading providers of corporate web hosting, with most of the nation’s largest companies’ data residing on their cloud computers. Apple has long dominated in the mobile phone market, and Amazon is disrupting every market it enters and branching out beyond eCommerce.

The stock prices, however, are clearly brushing off any of those concerns. Although Facebook and Apple aren’t reporting quarterly earnings until later this week, investors still traded the stocks higher late last week. Many are betting the two will have strong quarters, with Facebook expected to report 40 percent growth in sales, reported CNBC. Apple is expected to see 8 percent growth driven by sales of iPhones, which is projected to hit 46 million units.