Meta and Alphabet both missed EPS estimates this month, with the shortfalls driven by items outside their ad businesses: a $9.89B legal charge at Meta and an $8.70B equity securities loss at Alphabet. Meta's revenue rose 26.1% to $64.60B on a 14% rise in average price per ad, while Google Cloud revenue rose 103% to $30.71B. Meta is building Muse, a personal AI agent that its CEO acknowledged is very compute-intensive to run, and aims to raise efficiency more than 10x within a year, with 2026 capex planned at $135-145B. Alphabet held its 2026 capex outlook steady but expects a significant increase in 2027, and it is raising cash through $28.7B in notes plus at-the-market stock sales, which means dilution. The author leans toward Alphabet because its Cloud customers are paying for capacity today, while Meta's case depends on Muse becoming a commerce platform.
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METAGOOGLadvertisingartificial intelligenceearnings
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Related tickers and likely impact
META
• NeutralMeta Platforms
Relevance: low
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Communication Services |
| Industry | Interactive Media & Services |
| Market cap | $1.7T |
| Close on 10/28/2026 | 612.49 |
| Change that session | -1.24% |
GOOGL
• NeutralAlphabet Inc. (Class A)
Relevance: low
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Communication Services |
| Industry | Interactive Media & Services |
| Market cap | $4.0T |
| Close on 10/28/2026 | 325.61 |
| Change that session | +1.57% |
Impact is scored by AI from the headline and may be wrong. It is not investment advice.
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