NASDAQ Hits Record High Ahead Of Big Tech Earnings Reports

It’s a big day for the technology sector: The NASDAQ kissed a new, all-time record high during regular trading, while Google, Microsoft, Pandora, and Amazon are set to report their first quarter financial performance after the bell. The four companies have a combined market cap of $913 billion.
Here’s the rundown, starting with Google:

• Google: Investors expect Google to earn $6.63 per share on revenue of $14.06 billion. Google’s shares were up in regular trading, leaving the company worth around $372 billion dollars. In the sequentially preceding quarter, Google missed on both profit, and revenue.
• Amazon: The street expects Amazon to lose $0.13 per share on revenue of $22.39 billion. Amazon was down a fraction in regular trading, leaving the company worth around $180 billion. The massive ecommerce play had a mixed fourth quarter, missing on revenue, but generating far more profit than the market expected.
• Microsoft: Analysts think that Microsoft made $0.51 per share on revenue of $21.06 billion in the first quarter. The company was up around a point in regular trading, leaving the software shop worth around $355 billion. Microsoft’s quarter will contain the usual mix of things: Surface top line, cloud revenue, and Office 365’s growth on the consumer side.
• Pandora: Investors expect Pandora to report a loss of $0.16 per share, on revenue of $224.5 million. Pandora, the smallest of the four firms, is worth around $3.7 billion.

It’s never wise to try to call a market top, history has proven repeatedly. That said, if the above companies bark sawdust, and miss expectations en masse, it isn’t too hard to imagine a scenario in which we see a retreat in multiples for public companies. That would mean lower prices down the chain, even in the private markets. From the other end, naturally, if the four horseman of the earnings apocalypse hit their numbers, we could be on the cusp of new record highs.

The chaos starts at 1 pm Pacific. Strap in to see if all our portfolios are about to find themselves under the opossum’s paw.