Big Tech stocks flex muscles again after a rough winter

Big Tech stocks are flexing their enormous strength again, after getting knocked around a bit earlier this year

NEW YORK -- Big Tech stocks are flexing their enormous strength again, after getting knocked around a bit earlier this year. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google's parent company and Facebook all gave profit reports this week that blew past investors' already high expectations. Apple earned 40% more than what Wall Street forecast, for example, leading one analyst to call it a “drop the mic” performance. The blowout reports are forcing the spotlight back onto this group of stocks that dominate the market like no fivesome ever has before, especially after they lagged behind earlier this year. Shares of each of the Big Five companies is on pace to rise at least 6.9% for April, and the majority are on track to more than double the S&P 500's 5.2% rise over the month. The financial results give some validation to investors who bid up the stocks through the pandemic on expectations they'd weave themselves deeper into everyone's lives, even as the broader economy collapsed around them. Amazon's $108.5 billion in sales last quarter helps show that it “is emerging from the pandemic in an even stronger position than it was before,” UBS analysts led by Michael Lasser said in a report, for example.