Alphabet is feeling the heat

A big week of tech earnings has produced some major disappointments with Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft all missing the mark – or expecting to soon. Meanwhile Fortescue looks to lithium and Elon arrives at Twitter HQ. These are the five biggest stories of the week.

1. Alphabet Soup

It’s been a tough week for tech. Take Alphabet (Google) which is growing at its slowest pace since 2013 (excluding the start of the pandemic).

YouTube revenue shrunk as it struggles to compete against TikTok, advertising sales slowed to a crawl and profit fell 27% from a year ago.

It has spooked investors with the US$1.2 trillion company selling off 9% in a single session – its worst since COVID-19 panic hit markets.

2. Tech wrap

Amazon fell 20% this morning after predicting weak spending. Microsoft sunk after it forecast falling demand for PCs and cloud computing.

Meta revealed its virtual reality arm has been losing US$1 billion a month on average this year. Its share price is now back where it was in 2015.

3. Running hot

Australian annual inflation hit 7.3% this week, coming in higher than expected as higher interest rates fail to make a dent.

It puts the RBA in a bit of a bind with some economists now forecasting the official interest rate could hit 4.2% by early next year. Ouch.

4. New job

Elon Musk looks like he’ll finally take control of Twitter later today after securing US$13 billion in financing and touring their offices.

Addressing staff, he now says he won’t cut three in four jobs. But he also claims he’s buying Twitter to help humanity so take it with a grain of salt.

5. Future Fortescue

Fortescue says it could soon get into lithium mining as it considers how to secure supply for its green energy businesses.

The company, which bought a battery manufacturer earlier this year, is increasingly looking to get into ‘future minerals’.