The anticipation of second-quarter Big Tech earnings was palpable. With a broad set of indicators pointing to a slowdown in the global economy, the highest inflation in four decades and a big jump in interest rates, there were many reasons to expect that tech earnings may be another data point of our fragile economic state — dare I say recession?
For some companies in tech, it was a rough quarter. Social-media companies Snap
SNAP,
-3.44%
and Meta
META,
+0.52%
come to mind. Chipmaker Intel
INTC,
+1.79%
may be at its low point. Others performed much better. IBM
IBM,
+0.96%
got things kicked off with relative strength. Microsoft
MSFT,
-0.97%
and Alphabet
GOOG,
-0.99%
missed estimates by a hair but largely left investors reassured with their results. Amazon beat revenue numbers significantly, and Apple
AAPL,
-0.62%
topped numbers across the board. It was a mixed bag of results that perhaps left as many questions as answers. But in short, this quarter’s big wave of tech earnings made it abundantly clear. Based on a combination of the right products, the right markets and unfettered demand that vastly outstrips any global economic distress, certain companies are too important to be hampered by the slowdown. The following four companies have the ingredients that will make them too important to fail and, therefore, should remain long-term …