Technology

Earnings Scoreboard: A Turbulent Week in Tech [Chart]

Published

7 years ago

April 29, 2016

Jeff Desjardins

Earnings Scoreboard: A Turbulent Week in Tech [Chart]

Amazon and Facebook soar, while Apple, Netflix, and Google whiff

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

For many blue chip companies, earnings season can end up being relatively dry.

For example, yesterday MasterCard reported an earnings “beat” of $0.86 earnings per share (EPS) compared to the $0.85 consensus. The stock inched up 0.7% in afternoon trading and now it’s back down today. In other words, it’s business as usual again.

However, for the world’s technology giants, earnings season can make or break a stock. The reason for this is simple: investors buy technology companies such as Amazon or Netflix for their future growth prospects, rather than their current profitability. In theory, these companies should have an incredible ability to scale, and the market prices this in to make these stocks more expensive.

If a company shows signs that it is growing slower than expected, investors punish the stock with the expectation of a ripple effect on future cash flows.

The Tech Scoreboard

The last week has been particularly eventful on the tech earnings front, and Jim Cramer’s “FANG” stocks were the center of the action. After buoying the market for much of 2015, the stocks went their separate directions.

Netflix kicked it off with a huge whiff. While revenues and EPS were on track for the quarter, its guidance on subscriber growth was the ringing of a big alarm bell. Wall Street was looking for the company to add 3.5 million international subscribers in Q2, but Netflix said it would only be adding two million. The stock has tanked spectacularly ever since, losing -18.3% in value.

Alphabet and Apple, the two most valuable public companies in the world by market capitalization, also showed signs of a struggle. Both stocks are now down close to -10% from pre-earnings, shedding a combined $100 billion in value. Apple posted its first year-over-year decline in quarterly revenue since 2003, while Google’s parent company fell short on both top and bottom lines. Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have lost a combined $3.8 billion in wealth since the report.

While this is all very dire for the tech sector, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg came to the rescue.

Yesterday, Amazon killed it for the quarter, bringing in an extra $1.1 billion of revenue above Street estimates. The company reported its largest quarterly profit, and analysts are now ecstatic about the company’s blowout quarter. The stock is up close to 10% today.

Facebook also helped save face for Silicon Valley, and shares have now hit an all-time high as the company beat projected revenues and earnings.

Related Topics:fb amzn nflx google earnings tech stocks aapl

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Technology

Nvidia Joins the Trillion Dollar Club

America’s biggest chipmaker Nvidia has joined the trillion dollar club as advancements in AI move at lightning speed.

Published

1 day ago

May 30, 2023

Dorothy Neufeld

Nvidia Joins the Trillion Dollar Club

Chipmaker Nvidia is now worth nearly as much as Amazon.

America’s largest semiconductor company has vaulted past the $1 trillion market capitalization mark, a milestone reached by just a handful of companies including Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. While many of these are household names, Nvidia has only recently gained widespread attention amid the AI boom.

The above graphic compares Nvidia to the seven companies that have reached the trillion dollar club.

Riding the AI Wave

Nvidia’s market cap has more than doubled in 2023 to over $1 trillion.

The company designs semiconductor chips that are made of silicon slices that contain specific patterns. Just like you flip an electrical switch by turning on a light at home, these chips have billions of switches that process complex information simultaneously.

Today, they are integral to many AI functions—from OpenAI’s ChatGPT to image generation. Here’s how Nvidia stands up against companies that have achieved the trillion dollar milestone:

	Joined Club	Market Cap in trillions	Peak Market Cap in trillions
Apple	Aug 2018	$2.78	$2.94
Microsoft	Apr 2019	$2.47	$2.58
Aramco	Dec 2019	$2.06	$2.45
Alphabet	Jul 2020	$1.58	$1.98
Amazon	Apr 2020	$1.25	$1.88
Meta	Jun 2021	$0.68	$1.07
Tesla	Oct 2021	$0.63	$1.23
Nvidia	May 2023	$1.02	$1.02

Note: Market caps as of May 30th, 2023

After posting record sales, the company added $184 billion to its market value in one day. Only two other companies have exceeded this number: Amazon ($191 billion), and Apple ($191 billion).

As Nvidia’s market cap reaches new heights, many are wondering if its explosive growth will continue—or if the AI craze is merely temporary. There are cases to be made on both sides.

Bull Case Scenario

Big tech companies are racing to develop capabilities like OpenAI. These types of generative AI require vastly higher amounts of computing power, especially as they become more sophisticated.

Many tech giants, including Google and Microsoft use Nvidia chips to power their AI operations. Consider how Google plans to use generative AI in six products in the future. Each of these have over 2 billion users.

Nvidia has also launched new products days since its stratospheric rise, spanning from robotics to gaming. Leading the way is the A100, a powerful graphics processing unit (GPU) well-suited for machine learning. Additionally, it announced a new supercomputer platform that Google, Microsoft, and Meta are first in line for. Overall, 65,000 companies globally use the company’s chips for a wide range of functions.

Bear Case Scenario

While extreme investor optimism has launched Nvidia to record highs, how do some of its fundamental valuations stack up to other giants?

As the table below shows, its price to earnings (P/E) ratio is second-only to Amazon, at 214.4. This shows how much a shareholder pays compared to the earnings of a company. Here, the company’s share price is over 200 times its earnings on a per share basis.

	P/E Ratio	Net Profit Margin (Annual)
Apple	30.2	25.3%
Microsoft	36.1	36.7%
Aramco	13.5	26.4%
Alphabet	28.2	21.2%
Amazon	294.2	-0.5%
Meta	33.9	19.9%
Tesla	59.0	15.4%
Nvidia	214.4	16.19%

Consider how this looks for revenue of Nvidia compared to other big tech names:

$NVDA $963 billion market cap, 38x Revenue
$MSFT $2.5 trillion market cap, 12x Revenue$TSLA $612 billion market cap, 7.8x Revenue$AAPL $2.75 trillion market cap, 7.3x Revenue$GOOG $1.6 trillion market cap, 6.1x Revenue$META $672 billion market cap, 6x Revenue pic.twitter.com/VgkKAfiydx

— Martin Pelletier (@MPelletierCIO) May 29, 2023

For some, Nvidia’s valuation seems unrealistic even in spite of the prospects of AI. While Nvidia has $11 billion in projected revenue for the next quarter, it would still mean significantly higher multiples than its big tech peers. This suggests the company is overvalued at current prices.

Nvidia’s Growth: Will it Last?

This is not the first time Nvidia’s market cap has rocketed up.

During the crypto rally of 2021, its share price skyrocketed over 100% as demand for its GPUs increased. These specialist chips help mine cryptocurrency, and a jump in demand led to a shortage of chips at the time.

As cryptocurrencies lost their lustre, Nvidia’s share price sank over 46% the following year.

By comparison, AI advancements could have more transformative power. Big tech is rushing to partner with Nvidia, potentially reshaping everything from search to advertising.