Big Tech Earnings Week is Over. Who Won and Lost?

Despite most major technology companies reporting better-than-expected profits this week, their stocks actually declined, resulting in a collective loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in market value over just two days.

Instead of just looking at news headlines, four key indicators give a clearer picture of how the market really performed this week: price changes, the movement of money, activity in options trading, and adjustments made by financial analysts.

Why This Big Tech Earnings Week Mattered

Over a four-day period, seven major companies released their quarterly earnings reports. Texas Instruments started things off on July 21st, then Alphabet, Tesla, IBM, and ServiceNow reported on July 22nd, with Intel and SAP finishing up on July 23rd.

This past week marked the first major evaluation of how companies are actually investing in artificial intelligence, following previous suggestions they were overspending on technology. Investors were looking for evidence that their large investments in data centers were beginning to generate profits.

Experts say these large companies lost around $800 billion in value yesterday, marking their biggest one-day drop since April 2025.

The stock market experienced significant movement today. Tesla (TSLA) dropped 14%, marking its largest single-day loss since January. Google (GOOGL) also fell by 7% after reporting its first quarter of negative free cash flow in two decades. These declines are happening amidst challenging economic conditions.

— amit (@amitisinvesting) July 24, 2026

Spending guidance now moves these stocks more than earnings do.

Who Won Big Tech Earnings Week?

Just two people really stood out this week. One had a big win thanks to strong performance, and the other succeeded more subtly by being in the right place at the right time.

Intel

Intel reported strong financial results, exceeding expectations across the board. Revenue increased by 25% to $16.1 billion – the biggest jump in nearly 15 years – and earnings per share doubled what analysts predicted, reaching $0.42. As a result, the company’s stock price rose by over 12% in after-hours trading.

Looking at financial data, the amount of money flowing from institutions suggests a more hesitant outlook. The Chaikin Money Flow indicator, which tracks institutional investment, was at -0.13 recently.

Barchart data indicates that the put/call open interest ratio – a measure of outstanding contracts – is at 0.96. This suggests increasing bearish hedging activity, meaning investors are preparing for a potential drop in Intel’s stock price from its recent range of 0.6 to 0.75.

Despite increasing their price targets, analysts at Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan maintained their existing ratings. Morgan Stanley kept a Hold rating with a $84 target, while JPMorgan held a Sell rating with an $85 target, according to TipRanks.

ServiceNow

ServiceNow’s stock price dropped 3.7% after its latest earnings report, which initially seemed disappointing. However, a closer look reveals a strong performance: the company exceeded earnings expectations, increased subscription revenue by 24.5%, and improved its future financial forecast.

CMF slipped to −0.10, so big money has not yet confirmed a recovery.

After the data was released, both the put/call ratios decreased – falling from 0.54 to 0.42 based on trading volume and from 0.83 to 0.80 considering open interest. This suggests growing optimism among investors.

As a researcher, I’ve observed an interesting dynamic recently. While KeyBanc maintained a ‘Sell’ rating, analysts at both Bernstein and Evercore actually *increased* their price targets. This seems to have encouraged investors to see the recent dip as a buying opportunity – they’re treating it as a good entry point.

Who Lost the Week?

Those who failed weren’t brought down by a lack of customer interest. Instead, the market reacted much more strongly to excessive spending than to disappointing sales figures.

Tesla

Tesla’s recent earnings report disappointed investors on multiple fronts. The company fell short of expectations with earnings of 33 cents per share (analysts predicted 51 cents), experienced negative free cash flow, and significantly increased its spending on capital projects (up 142%). As a result, the stock price dropped 14.5%, marking its biggest single-day decline in over a year, and concluding a week of anxious anticipation surrounding the earnings release.

The market confirmed the damage, with the Commitment of Traders (COT) index falling from -0.06 to -0.12. This indicates that sellers were increasingly dominant as deliveries reached record levels.

Trading volume increased slightly, rising from 0.78 to 0.83 relative to the number of calls, and at least six firms lowered their price targets, among them JPMorgan and UBS.

Alphabet

Despite strong financial results, Alphabet’s stock price fell last week. The company reported a 24% increase in revenue to $119.8 billion for July, with its Cloud division growing by an impressive 82%, according to CNBC. However, investors reacted negatively to news that Alphabet plans to significantly increase capital spending – potentially up to $205 billion by 2026 – causing the stock to drop by 7.1%.

The company’s recent spending led to negative free cash flow for the first time in over 20 years, according to analysts. This means shareholders are currently covering the costs of developing their artificial intelligence technology.

Investors started selling shares of CMF before the negative news became widely known. The stock price dropped significantly – from $0.14 on July 20th to just $0.03 following the report, indicating a retreat by larger investors throughout the week. Despite this decline, analysts generally maintained their positive outlook (Buy ratings), though firms like JPMorgan, Piper Sandler, and UBS lowered their price targets. Trading activity, as measured by open interest, saw a slight increase from 0.68 to 0.70.

Investors who predicted large changes in company profits saw those predictions come true, following recent questions about how much companies are spending on artificial intelligence.

Three Stocks Ended the Week Neutral

Several candidates landed somewhere in the middle, showing mixed results. This uncertainty means they’re the ones we should be paying close attention to.

Despite several analysts increasing their price targets for Texas Instruments – JPMorgan raised theirs to $340 – the amount of options contracts betting against the stock (put volume) doubled, going from 0.38 to 0.76 this week.

Yet CMF improved to −0.03, so buyers absorbed the profit-taking dip. A mixed reaction, indeed.

Okay, so IBM’s earnings weren’t great – they missed expectations and lowered their future outlook. Analysts really slashed their price targets, with Morgan Stanley going all the way down to $190. But surprisingly, the stock actually *went up* on the day! I think that’s because the huge 25% drop we saw back on July 14th had already factored in a lot of the bad news. The stock’s money flow indicator (CMF) even improved slightly to -0.09, suggesting some buying pressure despite everything.

The Put-Call ratio remains bullish.

Plus, many Wall Street analysts are still predicting the stock will go higher. Jefferies, for example, maintained a ‘Buy’ rating even after the latest results were announced.

SAP’s US stock (called an American Depositary Receipt) reported lower-than-expected earnings, but demand for its cloud services, as measured by backlog, increased by 27%.

Put volume collapsed from 1.99 to 0.60 as speculators exited, yet hedges rose to 1.10.

Here are all the key analyst targets, sourced directly from TipRanks.

The pattern from big tech earnings week is hard to miss.

Investors are now favoring companies actually *using* artificial intelligence, while those simply investing in AI aren’t performing as well. We’ll see next week if trading activity and new options contracts support the idea that Intel was the biggest beneficiary of this trend.

2026-07-25 00:45