Tech giants show no sign of slowing down

Big Tech crushed earnings this past quarter, proving the resilience of their businesses even as the country begins to emerge from the pandemic.

The big picture: A strong recovery in the advertising market and continued reliance on cloud services and at-home entertainment have given most tech firms a boost.

Details: Despite a few cautious forecasts, the sector shows no sign of slowing down.

• Facebook's stock hit an all-time high Wednesday after reporting a whopping 48% revenue growth year-over-year.
• Apple's earnings report blew past Wall Street estimates, as sales of the iPhone, Mac and iPad all came in far ahead of expectations.
• Amazon blew past analyst expectations for both earnings and revenue on Thursday, as sales surged 44% year-over-year.
• Microsoft crushed Wall Street expectations and posted its highest revenue growth since 2018.
• Google's parent company, Alphabet, reported a record profit last quarter. Its video arm, YouTube, brought in a whopping $6 billion in revenue last quarter, more than Snapchat, Linkedin and Pinterest combined.
• Snapchat beat Wall Street expectations on subscriber growth, earnings and revenue, while also reporting that usage of its AR products hit an all-time high.

Yes, but: Some analysts have warned that the momentum behind these companies could slow down, given the fact that it will be nearly impossible to match the comps from record-high numbers driven by the height of lockdowns last year.

• Twitter, Netflix, and Pinterest shares dropped amid subscriber slowdowns. Twitter reported weak guidance moving forward.

Bottom line: The pandemic has helped solidify the dominance of Big Tech other sectors, like traditional media and retail.