Buy, Sell, or Hold These Mag 7 Stocks After Earnings: AAPL, AMZN
Markets haven’t kept the momentum investors were hoping for after receiving much-anticipated quarterly results from Amazon AMZN and Apple AAPL last Thursday.
While both were able to exceed top and bottom-line expectations, their guidance was somewhat underwhelming compared to the more reassuring outlook given by other Mag-7 tech giants like Meta Platforms META and Microsoft MSFT.
Following previous news reports that Amazon had planned to highlight how higher tariffs are raising prices on its platform, the e-commerce giant stated it’s working to keep prices low amid an uncertain moment for consumers. Amazon’s Q1 sales rose 10% year over year to $155.66 billion and eclipsed estimates of $154.56 billion. Notably, Amazon’s cloud computing division, AWS, contributed to 19% of its Q1 sales and increased 17% YoY to $29.3 billion.
On the bottom line, Q1 EPS of $1.59 comfortably exceeded expectations of $1.35 by 17% and spiked 40% from $1.13 per share a year ago. Amazon has exceeded sales estimates in three of its last four quarterly reports and has beaten earnings expectations for 10 consecutive quarters.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Reporting results for its fiscal second quarter, Apple’s Q2 sales were up 5% to $95.35 billion and topped estimates of $94.26 billion. Apple also highlighted that its services segment achieved an all-time revenue record of $26.7 billion, which increased 12% from the comparative quarter and was driven by strong performance across Apple Music, Apple TV+, and iCloud, among other subscription-based services.
Apple’s Q2 EPS of $1.65 was up 8% from $1.53 in the prior period and beat estimates of $1.61 per share by 2%. Furthermore, Apple has exceeded its top and bottom-line expectations for nine consecutive quarters.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Amazon expects Q2 sales at $159-$164 billion with the current Zacks Consensus at $161.62 billion or 9% growth (Current Qtr below). Still, Amazon stated the external environment remains complex, with its Q2 operating income guidance of $13-$17.5 billion coming short of many analyst expectations of $17.8 billion.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
As for Apple, the company expects its Q3 sales to grow by low to mid-single digits, with the Zacks Consensus at $89.12 billion or 4% growth. Weighing on investor sentiment was that Apple expects $900 million in tariff-related costs on a 16% tax rate, although it projects its Q3 gross margins between 45.5%-46.5%.