Gloomy results by Alphabet, Microsoft stoke fears of a global downturn

Alphabet leads Big Tech sell-off after reporting slowdown in ad growth, Microsoft's cloud revenue softer than expected

Gloomy results from Alphabet and Microsoft stoked fears of a global economic downturn and derailed an earnings-led surge in stock markets on Wednesday, while setting the tone for results from other megacap technology giants.
 

Alphabet shares were down more than 8 per cent shortly after Wall Street’s opening bell on Wednesday after the largest seller of digital advertising in the US reported on Tuesday evening that third-quarter revenues grew 6 per cent to $69.1billion.

Except for a brief contraction at the start of the pandemic, it was the slowest rate of growth since 2013 and fell short of analysts’