Earnings rise for big tech firms

Earnings reports rolling in from the world’s biggest technology companies are providing vindication for stock market bulls who’ve been bidding their shares up furiously for five weeks.

Alphabet’s shares rose more than 9 percent after the company posted strong first quarter results, with a slowdown in ad sales offset by a 13 percent spike in revenue.

Microsoft, Tesla and Facebook reported earnings after Wednesday’s close. Microsoft beat revenue and earnings estimates and saw shares advance 1 percent in after-hours trading. Facebook shares jumped 8 percent after hours after reporting an 18 percent increase in earnings. Other earnings reports:

• Boeing reported a $1.7 billion loss in the first quarter and said it would slash its 150,000member workforce by 10 percent. The global halt in air travel is compounding the plane-maker’s steep losses tied to the 737 Max crisis, which alone has cost the company $5 billion, it reported Wednesday.

• Tesla eked out a small firstquarter net profit just as the coronavirus started to affect the electric car and solar panel maker. The company said it made $16 million from January through March, or 8 cents per share.

• Yum Brands said Wednesday that same-store sales across its brands had dropped 7 percent in the first quarter. The restaurant giant said sales at KFC shrank 8 percent, while Pizza Hut sales dropped 11 percent. But sales at Taco Bell — which has been offering drive-thru service throughout the pandemic — rose 1 percent.

• General Electric said Wednesday that overall revenue fell 8 percent to $20.5 billion in the first quarter of the year. The coronavirus pandemic especially impacted the aviation division, which saw a 13 percent decline. But the health care sector of the business, which doubled its production of ventilators and increased its manufacturing of other medical equipment used in the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19, saw revenue increase by 7 percent to $5.3 billion.