Tech Roundup: Facebook's Meta plunges and Snap soars in a wave of earnings reports
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Investors could barely relax this past week as the likes of Google's Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Facebook's Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:FB) and semiconductor leader Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) kept Wall Street on its toes and looking for a semblance of consistency from from the latest stretch of quarterly earnings reports.



Alphabet (GOOG) started things off with fourth-quarter results that blew away analysts' expectations, and gave the company's shares a 7% boost in response. Alphabet (GOOG) also surprised its shareholders by saying it will enact a 20-for-1 stock split to take effect in July. 


And going forward, Alphabet (GOOG) Chief Executive Sunday Pichai said the company intends on putting more emphasis on artificial intelligence and digital advertising this year. 


Along with Alphabet (GOOG), AMD (AMD) made its investors happy with a strong quarterly report and outlook that sent its shares north and gave other chipmakers a boost. AMD (AMD) CEO Lisa Su said growing demand for servers is set to lead its business deals this year.


And then there was Facebook, and its new corporate moniker, Meta Platforms (FB).


On Wednesday, Meta (FB) reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed consensus forecasts, and gave a revenue forecast that also fell short of analysts' expectations. That was enough to drive Meta's (FB) shares down by more than 20% on Thursday--and cut more than $220 billion from the company's market cap in what was the single-biggest one-day loss in stock market value in U.S. history. 
The likes of Snap (NYSE:SNAP) and Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) suffered a case of guilt-by-association as reaction to Meta's (FB) report dragged multiple social-media related stocks into the red. But, a funny thing then happened, as Snap (SNAP) and Pinterest (PINS) reported their own quarterly results that were better than expected. And investors reacted in kind by sending Snap's (SNAP) shares soaring almost 60%, and giving Pinterest (PINS) an 11% boost by the close of trading on Friday.



Among other notable companies that reported earnings results this week, AT&T (NYSE:T) lost ground after saying that it intends to spin off its stake in WarnerMedia as part of that company's tie up with Discovery (NASDAQ:DISCA), set for the second quarter of this year. Podcasting giant Spotify (NYSE:SPOT)
watched its shares fall almost 17% in reaction to it giving a weak outlook for active users in the first quarter of this year. And satellite radio operator SiriusXM (NASDAQ:SIRI) got a lift after it reported earnings that beat estimates, and also declared a $1 billion special dividend.


The videogame market, already marked by Take-Two's (NASDAQ:TTWO) plans to acquire mobile-gaming company Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), and Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) nearly $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI), saw another deal go down, and Sony (NYSE:SONY) said it reached a deal to scoop up Halo developer Bungie for $3.6 billion.


Getting back to Microsoft (MSFT) and Activision (ATVI) for a moment; Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella said adding Activision (ATVI) to its stable will give the software giant a bigger push into the metaverse.


Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) didn't buy up another gaming company, but it did find away to bother Microsoft (MSFT) a bit by naming Chris Suh, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft's cloud + AI group as the videogame giant's new CFO.


And the New York Times also opened up its checkbook ever so slightly to acquire the barely four-month-old hit word game Wordle, reportedly for a price in the "low seven figures."