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By Sweta Singh and Nivedita Bhattacharjee
(Reuters) - How much bigger can the world's biggest tech
companies get?
Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Intel together generated more
than $100 billion in revenue in the September quarter, roughly 2
percent of United States' national output.
Judging by premarket gains, the tech giants could add another
$75 billion to their combined market value, and spark a broader
rally when the market opens on Friday.
The companies beat Wall Street expectations for profit and
revenue for the quarter, riding on bumper demand for their cloud
computing businesses as corporate computing shifts away from
company-owned data centers and to the cloud.
"Obviously we are headed for a strong opening due to the
smashing results from the tech heavyweights," said Peter
Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial in
New York.
"I expect markets to close the week on new record highs and a
good portion of that should be attributed to the results that
came from the tech companies."
Wall Street analysts scrambled to raise their price targets on
the stocks.
Credit Suisse raised its price target on Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O>
to $1,385 from $1,350, indicating that the stock has room to
climb another 42 percent over the next 12 months from Thursday's
close.
The brokerage also made the most bullish moves on Intel Corp <INTC.O>
and Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O>.
Deutsche Bank, the most bullish brokerage on Alphabet, said the
company can add another 24 percent to its shares in the next 12
months.
While the market is used to record-breaking results from
Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> and Alphabet Inc <GOOGL.O>, Microsoft
Corp's <MSFT.O> revenue rose the most in percentage terms in
three years, underscoring the success of Chief Executive Satya
Nadella's turnaround strategy.
Even old guard Intel Corp <INTC.O>, which has been struggling
with tepid growth, said revenue from its higher-margin data
center business rose 7 percent, slightly beating expectations.
(Reporting by Sweta Singh and Nivedita Bhattacharjee in
Bengaluru; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Saumyadeb
Chakrabarty)
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