Fast Money Blog- 8/2/25

This was a huge week on Wall Street, as major Dow and S&P components, including Visa Inc. (V), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), Meta Platforms (META), Apple, Inc. (AAPL) and Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) released their earnings reports. 

But first, let’s take a look at today’s release of July’s U.S. Jobs Report which showed a significant slowdown in job growth, with U.S. employers adding only 73,000 jobs in July, and the job numbers for May and June being revised downwards.  

The unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.2%.

For now, according to the Federal Reserve, we haven’t seen a significant impact on the economy due to tariffs. But we did see slower job growth due to AI. 

Here’s something most investors don’t think about when it comes to job growth:

The whole point of AI is to eliminate jobs and cut labor costs. As more and more AI is implemented, we are going to continue to see slowing job growth.

Those of us who invest in companies like Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon, are essentially betting on AI putting people out of work, therefore raising the profits of those said companies, who then pass some of that profit to us.

Let’s look at how those 3 companies are benefiting from AI.

On Wednesday, July 30th, Microsoft crushed their Q4 2025 earnings, with top-line revenue of $76.4 billion, up 18% year-over-year. 

These outstanding results are largely attributed to the company’s cloud computing business, particularly the Azure cloud platform.

Microsoft’s Intelligent cloud had quarterly revenue of $29.9 billion, up 26% year-over-year. 

The Productivity and Business Processes segment, which includes LinkedIn and the Office suite of products, brought in $33.1 billion, an increase of 16% year-over-year.    

The company also reported that their More Personal Computing revenue came in at $13.5 billion, up 9% year-over-year.

Fiscal Year 2025 Results

Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:

• Revenue was $281.7 billion and increased 15%     

• Azure, Microsoft’s Cloud computing platform, which offers services like computing, storage, analytics and AI, brought in $75 billion in revenue for the fiscal year, up 34% from the previous fiscal year. 

On Wednesday, July 30th, we got 2nd quarter results from Meta, who saw top-line revenue grow 22% year-over-year to $47.52 billion.

Advertising revenue, which makes up the bulk of Meta's revenue, climbed 21% to $46.56 billion. CEO Mark Zuckerberg attributed this gain to greater efficiency and gains in its AI developments. 

In addition, Mets’s net income rose 36% year over year to $18.34 billion.

Yesterday, July 31rd, saw Amazon release Q2 earnings that were stellar, with top-line revenue of $167.7 billion, up 13% year-over-year. 

Here’s what you need to know about Amazon:

The company’s cloud computing unit saw its Q2 revenue climb 18% year-over-year to $30.87 billion.

Amazon’s advertising business had very impressive results, with ad revenue growing 23% year-over-year to $15.69 billion. 

Amazon’s online store sales (which comes from the products that the company sells directly), grew 11% year-over-year to $61.49 billion.

Despite Friday’s close which saw these stocks fall as investors took profits, all of these companies are doing very well. 

In addition to Amazon, Apple also posted their Q3 2025 earnings yesterday, with top-line revenue of $94.04 billion, up 10% year-over-year, marking Apple’s largest quarterly revenue growth since December 2021.

The company did well in every sector:

iPhone revenue was $44.58 billion, up 13% year-over-year. 

Mac revenue was up almost 15% for the quarter, to a robust $8.05 billion. 

Of course, Apple’s Services sector, which includes Apple’s warranties, content subscriptions, licensing deals with Google, and iCloud subscriptions continued to grow with revenue up 13% for the quarter to $27.42 billion.

In other good news Apple saw revenue in China, a market in which the company has struggled, grow 4% year over year.

We also received an earnings report from Visa on Tuesday, July 29th, who reported outstanding Q3 2025 earnings, with a record revenue of $10.2 billion, up 14% year-over-year. Consumer spending remained strong, as Visa had strong growth across the board. 

Here’s what you need to know:

• Total payments volume increased 8% year-over-year

• Total Processed Transactions increased 10% year-over-year, for a total of $65.4 billion. 

• Cross-border volume jumped 12% from last year. 

• Quarterly service revenue was $4.3 billion, an increase of 9% year-over-year. This segment includes loyalty programs, advanced security measures like fraud prevention, and personalized offers.

Despite today’s sell-off, going forward, I see almost all Dow and S&P stocks continuing to rise.

Tyrone Jackson, The Wealthy Investor