How US Stock Markets Rewarded Google But Punished Meta After Q1 Earnings
Alphabet (GOOGL) added more than $300 billion in market value on April 30, 2026, lifting its capitalization above $4.5 trillion. Meta Platforms (META) shed roughly $175 billion in the same session despite a stronger top-line beat. Both companies reported Q1 2026 results after the close on April 29. Investors rewarded Google for visible AI revenue while punishing Meta for its heavier capital-spending guidance. Alphabet (GOOGL) vs Meta Stock Price Comparison Over the Last Week of April. Source: Google FinanceCloud Revenue Carried the Beat Google Cloud reported $20 billion in revenue for Q1, up 63% year over year. Backlog climbed to more than $460 billion, nearly doubling sequentially. Enterprise AI demand is running well ahead of supply. “Google Cloud saw a meaningful acceleration in growth as revenues increased 63% to $20.0 billion, led by an increase in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) across enterprise AI Solutions and enterprise AI Infrastructure, as well as core GCP services,” read an excerpt in the announcement. Search queries reached an all-time high during the quarter on the back of Gemini integration. Consumer AI subscriptions topped 350 million. Alphabet also raised its dividend by 5%. Q1 capital expenditure landed at $35.7 billion. The company lifted full-year 2026 capex guidance to $180 billion –