A weak jobs report with a side of hot tech earnings and fresh tariffs.
The US economy created 73,000 jobs in July, falling short of estimates for 100,000. And there were large downward revisions to May and June jobs numbers! The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%.
Investors are likely to wonder if the Trump administration’s tariff policy — including new levies on goods from Canada and other top trading partners today — is beginning to weigh on hiring plans and the economy.
Queue those Trump rate-cut posts on Truth Social.
The economic read comes on the heels of strong earnings from Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) last night. The duo capped an impressive earnings week for large caps, with Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) being the other standouts. Even second-tier Big Tech names in Roblox (RBLX) have crushed expectations (watch CEO Dave Baszucki’s interview above).
Most importantly, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Microsoft, and Meta all put to bed one fear: Lofty valuations supported by hopes for AI-driven growth may not be lofty enough.
Zoom in: Large-cap tech earnings quiet the naysayers
Not only did Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft show strong growth throughout their giant businesses, but execs also conveyed that AI is unlocking new avenues of growth for the quarter to come. Their bottom lines also easily eclipsed Wall Street forecasts.
Reports were generally embraced (save for Amazon, where investors opted to lock in on an OK outlook rather than a blowout outlook).
“As the main engine of US equity profitability for the last few years, 2Q25 results from Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft suggest that growth momentum is intact,” Barclays strategist Venu Krishna said.
It’s a point well taken.
Apple’s services growth tallied 13% last quarter and is expected to increase at a similar pace in the current quarter. Quarterly iPhone sales increased 13% from the prior year and improved in every geographic market.
The company had the saddest story to tell on the AI front, but CEO Tim Cook still did enough on the earnings call to temporarily ratchet down worries that Apple will be a nonentity in AI. The company has spent $15.5 billion in capital expenditures in the first half of the year, up from $11 billion a year ago — underscoring its AI investment roadmap.
AI rollouts by big companies continue to feed Amazon’s lucrative AWS cloud business. Second quarter sales for AWS rose 17.5% from last year, accelerating from a 16.9% growth rate in the first quarter. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on the earnings call that demand for AWS is outstripping supply.
“We highlight several potential catalysts in the intermediate-term that could possibly offset some near-term uncertainty, including (1) more meaningful improvements in cost to serve driven by deeper automation and robotics, (2) commercialization of new AI capabilities in Alexa, (3) monetization of Project Kuiper which could begin late this year, and (4) an expected increase in Prime Subscription prices in 2026,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said.
The same vibe was seen at Microsoft as sales at the Azure cloud business accelerated 4% sequentially.
Azure’s growth “further validates Microsoft’s share gains and leadership in monetizing AI,” Citi analyst Tyler Radke said.
Then there was the report of the week out of Meta.
On top of a 22% sales increase, the company signaled that the good times will keep on rolling as it plows deeper into artificial intelligence. AI investments are beginning to pay off in terms of driving more sales growth, execs told the Street.
Perhaps more important than the sales increase is that operating profit margins rose despite megaspending on AI projects.
KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson said, “Meta’s 2Q results reinforced that AI is driving positive impacts on engagement and advertising, which enables Meta to invest more in AI capacity.”
Given the strength, one has to wonder if these stocks are actually cheap despite their above-market multiples. The answer to that may be yes — it’s hard to see what squashes their financial momentum over the next 12 months.
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Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor and a member of Yahoo Finance’s editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.
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