$Alphabet(GOOGL.US) $Tesla(TSLA.US) $China Merchants NASDAQ 100 ETF(QDII)(159659.CN)

The earnings season for U.S. tech stocks has kicked off.

What do you think about the outlook?

Looking at Alphabet as the parent company, Google's Q2 revenue and profits actually beat expectations, slightly exceeding analysts' forecasts. Revenue was $84.742 billion, up 14% year-over-year, surpassing the expected $84.19 billion; net profit was $23.619 billion, up 29% year-over-year, with earnings per share at $1.89 (vs. the expected $1.84). However, breaking it down by business, there were shortcomings—YouTube revenue fell short of expectations and declined quarter-over-quarter. The reason is that the comparison quarter in Q1 was relatively weak, and Q1 performance benefited from a significant increase in ad revenue from Asian e-commerce companies (I suspect Temu and others), so Q2 might not look as good in comparison (btw, are you also looking forward to the earnings report of Pinduoduo in the Nasdaq 100?). The stock price dropped nearly 2% after hours.

Tesla's issues might be more complex and significant. Q2 revenue was $25.5 billion, up 2% year-over-year, also beating expectations ($24.77 billion). However, adjusted EBITDA gross margin plunged to 14.4% (a clear sign of the fierce competition in the EV space). Auto performance was mediocre, and there were delays in the auto-pilot sector (CEO Elon Musk previously announced the Robotaxi unveiling, which was postponed from August 8 to October 10). Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, Elon on Giga Mexico: "We are currently paused. We need to see how things stand after the election; We are increasing capacity at our existing factories significantly." The Mexico factory's production ramp-up is on hold pending further developments; he also admitted that past predictions were overly optimistic. The stock price dropped nearly 8% after hours.