Alphabet rips 10% on Cloud beat as Meta tumbles 9% on capex shock, SOXX +2.5%

Alphabet ripped 9.96% to a record close as Google Cloud revenue jumped 63% and 2026 capital-spending fears washed over the rest of mega-cap tech, sending Meta Platforms down 8.55% on a $145 billion AI capex outlook. The S&P 500 added 1.02% to close at 7,209.01, the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.89%, and the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SOXX) rose 2.54% to 461.44, capping the strongest monthly stretch for chips since the AI cycle began.

Today's biggest movers

Alphabet pops 10% on Cloud blow-out, market cap doubles in a year

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) closed at $384.80, its biggest single-day gain since the 2023 AI re-rating, after Q1 2026 results topped consensus on every line. Consolidated revenue came in at $109.9 billion, up 22% year-over-year, against the $107.2 billion Street estimate. Net income hit $62.58 billion, with EPS of $5.11 versus the $2.63 adjusted consensus, lifted by an income-tax benefit but underpinned by genuine operating leverage.

The number Wall Street fixated on was Google Cloud. Revenue jumped 63% to $20 billion, operating income reached $6.6 billion, and operating margin expanded to 32.9% from 17.8% a year earlier. Cloud backlog nearly doubled to roughly $460 billion, a multi-year contracted-revenue figure that gives Alphabet visibility on AI-workload demand most peers lack. Google Search and Other Advertising rose 19% to $60.4 billion, with retail and financial-services verticals leading.

At least nine analysts raised price targets after the print. Citi pushed its target to $447, Bank of America to $430, Stifel to $420, and Barclays' Ross Sandler lifted his Overweight target by $45 to $405. Of the 66 analysts covering GOOGL, 59 now rate it Buy or higher. The market cap closed at $4.4 trillion, up from $1.9 trillion a year ago, the cleanest mega-cap re-rating of this earnings cycle.

Meta tumbles 9% after raising 2026 AI capex to $145 billion

Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META) closed at $611.91, down 8.55%, after a Q1 print that beat on revenue and earnings was overshadowed by a $20 billion lift to full-year capital expenditure guidance. Q1 revenue rose 33% year-over-year to $56.31 billion, the fastest growth quarter since 2021, with advertising at $55.02 billion and operating income at $22.8 billion. Adjusted EPS of $7.31, stripping out an $8.03 billion tax benefit, beat the $6.66 consensus by 9.6%.

The capex line was the catalyst. Meta now plans $125 billion to $145 billion of 2026 capital spending, up $10 billion on each end of the prior January range, citing higher component prices and additional data-center capacity for future-year capacity. Q1 capex alone was $18.99 billion, up 47%. JPMorgan downgraded the stock to Neutral from Overweight after the call, the first major downgrade Meta has taken on capex grounds this cycle.

The pushback is structural, not tactical. Unlike Alphabet, Microsoft, or Amazon, Meta has no third-party cloud business, so the burden of monetizing AI infrastructure falls entirely on its consumer ad surfaces and on internal Llama-based products. Investors looked at Alphabet's 32.9% Cloud margin and asked the obvious question.

AMD rallies 5% into next week's print as OpenAI deal narrative widens

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) closed at $354.49, up 5.16%, taking month-to-date gains past 68%. The bid is two-fold: positioning into the May 5 earnings release and continued digestion of the multi-gigawatt deployment plan with OpenAI and Meta in the second half of 2026. UBS analyst Timothy Acuri lifted his price target to a Street-high $455 from $310, citing data-center revenue mix already exceeding 52% with gross margin expanding to 57%. Consensus EPS for Q1 is $1.06, a 35.9% year-over-year increase.

Nvidia drops 4.6% on AI capex backlash, but flow is rotational

NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) closed at $199.57, down 4.63%, breaking below $200 on volume of 224 million shares. The decline is more about narrative than fundamentals. With Meta and Microsoft both spending more next year than this year and questions piling up on payback period, the easiest place for portfolio managers to take risk off is the highest-multiple beneficiary of that spend. Nvidia traded at an all-time high close of $216.61 on April 27. The intraday low today was $198.70, a 7.8% drawdown from that peak in three sessions.

Microsoft slips 3.9% despite Azure +40% as $190B capex hits the tape

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) closed at $407.78, down 3.93%, on a Q3 FY26 print that beat top and bottom line. Revenue was $82.89 billion, up 18%, with Intelligent Cloud at $34.68 billion (+30%) and Azure and other cloud services up 40%. Satya Nadella disclosed an AI revenue run-rate of $37 billion, up 123% year-over-year. CFO Amy Hood guided 2026 capex to roughly $190 billion, up 61% from 2025, including $25 billion of higher component pricing impact. The stock is down 13.78% year-to-date and just posted its worst quarter since 2008 on a return basis. Markets are pricing the Azure acceleration; they are also pricing the bill.

Notable but quieter

Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) added 4.56% to $126.53 on a continuation of the China-AI re-rating, with reports that ERNIE has crossed roughly 200 million monthly active users. Arm Holdings plc (NASDAQ: ARM) gained 4.28% to $210.32 ahead of its May 6 print, with Wells Fargo, Mizuho, and Needham all reiterating positive views on the AGI CPU launch and customer ramp from Meta, OpenAI, Cloudflare, and SAP. Super Micro Computer Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI) rose 4.10% to $27.40 in sympathy with the AMD bid. Snowflake Inc. (NYSE: SNOW) fell 3.36% to $136.47 and Cloudflare Inc. (NYSE: NET) lost 3.30% to $204.97, both caught in the same software-vs-hyperscaler rotation that hit Salesforce and ServiceNow.

What to watch tomorrow

Apple reports after the close on Thursday and will be the next stress test for AI-product narratives at consumer scale. AMD prints May 5 after the bell; ARM follows on May 6. The April PCE inflation reading and updated Fed commentary on the path of rates are the macro overhang for AI valuations next week. Watch SOXX 461 as the level chip bulls need to hold to keep the April trend intact.

Not investment advice.