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The Next Tech Earnings

Market Update

04.08.2025

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What happened last week?

Global

  • The US cut deals that will sharply increase the amount of import taxes Americans will pay on goods from Europe, Canada, and Switzerland.

US

  • Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft delivered quarterly updates that were mostly “magnificent”.
  • The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged, unsurprisingly.

Asia

  • Samsung’s semiconductor business drove off with a big $16.5 billion deal with Tesla.

Why It Matters

The European Union (EU) may have dodged a few bullets in the global trade war, but it didn’t come out unscathed. The US backed off its earlier threat of imposing a 30% tariff on almost everything from the bloc and shook hands on a 15% rate instead. Still, that’s three times the old rate. Some other trading partners didn’t get off as easily: so American consumers (or businesses) will now have to pay a 35% tax rate on goods from Canada, 39% on goods from Switzerland, and 25% on goods from India. This is likely to weigh on demand and global growth.

Microsoft and Meta crushed earnings forecasts this quarter, and their share prices rallied, pushing the tech-heavy Nasdaq to a new record high. Microsoft’s cloud division, Azure, posted stellar growth, and Meta’s use of AI across the company’s ad systems boosted engagement and advertising. Apple, meanwhile, sold more iPhones and services, giving the stock a small boost.

Amazon mostly hit the mark for analysts, but a more subdued outlook fell short of the market’s hopes – which sent its stock lower, giving back all this year’s gains.

Samsung locked in a $16.5 billion Tesla chip deal: its biggest-ever. The AI chips will help Tesla drive itself, build humanoids, and maybe even train up AI in the background inside data centres. It’s an eight-year contract that could get even bigger – potentially large enough to justify Samsung’s $17 billion Texas hub investment.

 

The Focus This Week: The Next Tech Earnings

Last week, things got a bit balmy. Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon all delivered their sunny updates, demonstrating once again that the AI boom’s no passing fancy. It’s driving real revenue, real profits, and record highs for the Nasdaq. With those giants out of the way (and Tesla and Alphabet the week before), now’s the time to pause, rehydrate, and let your screen time drop below 12 hours a day.

This week, some smaller – but still key – firms will open their quarterly books. AI-powered data analytics platform Palantir, chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and data centre player Arista Networks are all set to deliver updates, alongside consumer tech staples Uber and Airbnb.

Palantir alone could be worth leaving the poolside for: its stock is up more than 100% this year, making it a shimmering symbol of the market’s obsession with all things AI. But its valuation is already sky-high, and some super-lofty expectations are already baked in. That leaves little room for stumbles: any misstep could send the stock downwards.

Arista’s also been riding the AI wave with its high-speed, automated switches and networking solutions that help make the data centres hum. The stock’s up only 10% this year, but it’s more than doubled from its April low. Like most AI-related companies, its valuation looks pretty rich, but as long as its revenue and profit grow at a rapid pace, investors will likely continue to push the share price higher.

AMD, meanwhile, continues to turn heads – its shares are up nearly 50% this year as the firm stretches beyond traditional computing into AI and data centres. Even with that chunky growth, though, it’s still a very distant second-place to Nvidia in the race to design advanced graphics processing units (GPUs). With Nvidia now the world’s most valuable and buzziest company, second place can sometimes feel like last. Still, AMD’s results should give investors some useful insight into broader chip demand. Of course, you’ll have to wait to see how its results stack up against the leader’s: Nvidia’s earnings update is scheduled for August 27th.

The Week Ahead

  • Monday: US factory orders (June), China PMI (July). Earnings: Palantir.
  • Tuesday: Eurozone PPI (June), US ISM services (July). Earnings: Caterpillar, Pfizer, Advanced Micro Devices, Arista Networks, Rivian, Snap.
  • Wednesday: Eurozone retail sales (June). Earnings: McDonald's, Novo Nordisk, Uber, Disney, Airbnb, Occidental.
  • Thursday: Bank of England interest rate decision, Japan household spending (June). Earnings: Eli Lilly, Merck, Block, Pinterest, Take-Two Interactive.
  • Friday: China inflation (July), China PPI (July).

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