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Jon Keegan2/6/25

Amazon racks up record sales, but sinks on lower guidance

Amazon posted a whopping $187.8 billion in sales for Q4, topping Wall Street’s expectations and growing 10% from the quarter a year earlier, which was its previous best ever.

But investors didn’t like the company’s Q1 2025 guidance of between $151 billion and $155.5 billion in revenue, below the $158.6 billion analysts were expecting, according to FactSet. The stock was recently down 3% after-hours.

Earnings per share came in at $1.86, beating estimates of $1.49. Amazon’s AWS cloud computing unit matched estimates for 19% revenue growth.

Some highlights:

- Amazon’s AWS cloud computing business saw sales of $28.8 billion.

- Advertising revenue was $17.3 billion, just under estimates of $17.4 billion.

- Capital expenditures were higher than analysts’ estimates, coming in at $27.8 billion.

- “Project Rainier: A collaboration with Anthropic using hundreds of thousands of Trainium2 chips to build the world’s largest AI compute cluster.”

For all of FY 2024, Amazon’s net income was up 89% year over year to $20 billion from $10.6 billion.

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Microsoft shares have biggest single-day drop since March 2020

Yesterday, Microsoft reported strong earnings and revenue for its second quarter, but the stock plunged after hours. Investors seem to have been concerned about so much of Microsoft’s booked contracts coming from one company — OpenAI, as well as its slowing cloud growth.

Today, it got worse. Microsoft shares sunk 10%, suffering the largest single-day drop since the start of the COVID lockdown in March 2020.

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Matt Phillips1h

Western Digital beats Wall Street estimates for Q2 sales, EPS

Western Digital posted better-than-expected quarterly sales and earnings-per-share figures after the close Thursday, though the shares slipped after-hours.

Here’s how the results looked:

Fiscal Q2 revenue of $3.02 billion vs. the $2.93 billion consensus analyst expectation, per FactSet.
Adjusted earnings per share of $2.13 vs. the $1.93 analysts predicted.
Fiscal Q3 guidance for adjusted EPS of $2.15 to $2.45 vs. analyst estimates of $1.99.
Guidance for Q3 sales of $3.1 billion to $3.3 billion vs. estimates of $2.98 billion.

Western Digital — and rival Seagate Technology Holdings — were among the market’s best performers last year, rising 282% and 219%, respectively, as data storage became a key bottleneck for hyperscalers.

The shares are romping into 2026 as well, with both stocks up more than 60% in January through the close of trading on Thursday.

Sandisk fiscal Q2 earnings results

Sandisk blows past quarterly earnings expectations, forecasts blockbuster Q3 numbers

It was the best performer in the S&P 500 last year. It’s already doubled in January. And shares are soaring after-hours.

Matt Phillips1h

Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks fall as software slump drags down the tech sector

Meta, Microsoft, and Tesla all posted earnings beats after the bell yesterday, but market reaction was mixed on worries of ballooning capex.

Chicago Bears quarterback Dave Krieg shows dejection during a game against the Green Bay Packers on October 6, 1996 in Chicago. Green Bay won the game 37-6.

Southwest Airlines Announces It's Ending Its Open Seating

Southwest logs its biggest gain since 1978 as it says bag fees and seating changes will quadruple profit

Southwest shares closed up 19% on Thursday, their biggest daily gain in nearly half a century.

Max Knoblauch4h

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