Tech

Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft together ended the day $27.4 billion richer

Key Points
  • Google parent company Alphabet gained $22.75 billion in market cap on Friday
  • At one point on Friday, the three companies had added $50 billion to their combined market caps, but pared gains late
  • Alphabet and Amazon are in a race to stock prices of $1,000
Which would you choose: Own Amazon or Alphabet?
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Which would you choose: Own Amazon or Alphabet?

Big tech didn't deliver on everything Wall Street wanted Thursday night — but that didn't stop investors from handing $27 billion to Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet combined.

From the close of the market on Thursday to session highs on Friday, all three stocks hit an all-time high. That added more than $30.6 billion to Alphabet's Class A market capitalization, $14.2 billion to Amazon's market capitalization, and $6.7 billion to Microsoft's market cap, reaching about $52 billion.

The stocks later pared gains, falling below their peaks. By the end of the day on Friday, the trio were just $27.4 billion richer, with Alphabet seeing $22.75 billion of those gains. Microsoft saw the smallest gain, since it missed quarterly revenue estimates when it reported $23.56 billion, just slightly below analysts' estimates of $23.62 billion.

The gains left both Amazon and Alphabet closing in on share prices of $1,000. Amazon's market capitalization reached about $442.1 billion, according to FactSet, pushing founder Jeff Bezos' wealth closer to the richest in the world. Alphabet and Microsoft had market caps of about $636 billion and $529 billion, respectively, according to FactSet.

The figures put big tech among the world's wealthiest companies — at least in the eyes of Wall Street, which often considers expectations of a company's future cash as much as its current sales, as Tesla's Elon Musk has pointed out.

Tweet: Exactly. Tesla is absurdly overvalued if based on the past, but that's irrelevant. A stock price represents risk-adjusted future cash flows.

Either way, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet aren't doing too bad: The three posted combined revenue of about $84 billion in the first quarter. As a whole, the S&P technology sector has outperformed sector so far this year, racking up sales even as consumer spending has been flattish overall.

Watch: Alphabet & Amazon race to $1,000/share

Amazon and Alphabet racing to $1,000/share
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Amazon and Alphabet racing to $1,000/share