► Episode Notes:

Who’s been getting a haircut this week? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Podcast!

Steve and Steve are in to talk about earnings. This week, it’s the turn of the hyperscalers, with Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon on deck, so expect plenty about the cloud, AI, and advertising.

First, though, it’s Tesla – we didn’t get round to this one last week, so Steve and Steve are kicking the show off with everyone’s favourite not-a-car company. Revenues are up and margins are down as Elon Musk pushes for volume at hte cost of margins, but is that the right strategy for the business at the moment?

Then it’s on to Alphabet, a stock that both Steves own. Advertising revenue kept creeping forwards despite macroeconomic headwinds, but is ChatGPT about to eat the company’s lunch?

Meta is next – a stock that’s much more in fashion with investors at the moment than fellow advertising machine Google. The company’s revenue is growing again, its costs are coming down, but should investors be concerned that it’s continuing to throw money into a metaverse project?

After that, in a change from the hyperscaler run down, it’s time for Spotify – the company with the worst ad-supported platform in the world, according to Steve W. But nobody else agrees – monthly active users were up on the ad tier and the growth stock is doing very growthy things, meaning it could be one to keep an eye on for enterprising investors or people looking for good AI usage.

Lastly, it’s Amazon – the business that does it all, or at least tries to. A slowdown in growth at AWS has investors concerned, but the Steves think there’s enough going on with e-commerce, advertising, and the rest of its operations to keep things interesting for the time being. 

Only on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show!