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Amazon reported Q4 revenue of USD137.4 billion, up 9% yea-on-year, in line with analyst expectations. The company’s cloud computing business soared almost 40%, topping estimates. Operating income climbed significantly, boosted by a USD11.8 billion gain on its Rivian investment, which recently went public. Revenue from its fast growing advertising business, is up 32% yoy to USD9.7 billion during the quarter, making it the third largest advertiser in the US, behind Google and Meta. Even though Amazon's sales and guidance were weaker than expected, Amazon's earnings report gave investors confidence that growth will pick up. The stock is up 12% this morning in pre-market, recovering its losses and more from yesterday's steep sell-off of 4% in the Nasdaq. Besides hiccups in Meta and Netflix, big tech earnings remain solid.

Meta reported fourth-quarter revenue growth of 20% yoy. The net income numbers came out at USD10.29 billion, or USD3.67 a share, lower than the USD3.85 expected. The group also made an operating loss of USD3.3 billion on its Reality Labs unit. User numbers also disappointed slightly. In terms of guidance, growth translates to just 3%-11% per year, below the 15% expected by the street. Weak guidance caused investors to sell the stock aggressively in after-hours. Meta revealed it is facing setbacks as a result of Apple's privacy changes in its IOS. Investors may need some time to digest the slower growth and greater challenges that are coming into focus. The social media giant remains an outlier as other big tech companies such as Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft topped estimates on profit and revenue. However, all social media stocks came down severely in after-hours and the negative earnings report is weighing on investor sentiment, particularly in technology. Amazon, will announce earnings today after-hours, shedding light on whether e-commerce growth is slowing down. On the cloud business, we have some clues from Microsoft earnings last week, which were solid. 

Sales jumped 32% to USD75.3 billion in the fourth quarter, topping the average estimate of USD72 billion. For the full year, Alphabet's sales rose 41% to a record USD258 billion. The strong sales number show advertisers increased ad spending significantly as economic conditions improved. Google Cloud increased quarterly revenue by 45% to USD5.5 billion, but the unit still logs in a loss overall. Alphabet also announced it will undertake a twenty-to-one stock split. The stock jumped 9.1% in after-hours, at USD3'005, erasing losses from the January sell-off. Similarly, Alphabet' strong advertising numbers increased interest for Meta shares (FB), which leaped 3.5% higher in after-hours. It will report earnings today after the market close. 

Apple revenues, profit, iPhone sales, and services all beat analyst forecasts for Apple's last quarter of 2022. The results are particularly encouraging as it shows Apple is navigating well the global shortage of microchips. Sales of the iPhone giant increased 11% to a record USD123.9 billion in the 3 last months of the year. Mac sales were up 12% and Iphone sales jumped 9%. Sales from services are up a gigantic 23%. Specifically in China, sales gained 20%, which is very encouraging for the tech giant to be performing well in this key growth region. Apple stock is up 4.5% today, but still about 10% lower from the start of the year.

The US tech heavy indice, the Nasdaq is 14.5% lower year to date. The momentum indicator RSI is close to 25, a level last reached during Spring 2020 following the Covid-19 market shock. On a technical levels the charts are badly damaged, with only around 17% of Nasdaq stocks above their respective 200-day moving averages. The last time this many stocks were below their averages was April 2020. From a fundamentals perspective, valuations have compressed and earnings reports are positive.