A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business' Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here.
What's happening: One day after the CEOs of Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google were grilled by Congress about whether their companies are too powerful, the businesses posted earnings that showed they're only getting more dominant, my CNN Business colleagues Clare Duffy, Kaya Yurieff, Brian Fung and Rishi Iyengar report.
"This is another sign that the strong have only gotten stronger," said Ryan Detrick, chief investment strategist at LPL Financial.
The results drove Nasdaq futures 0.8% higher. Amazon's stock rose 5% in premarket trading, while Apple and Facebook shares increased 6%.
Breaking it down: Facebook (FB) said Thursday that it had more than 3 billion monthly active users in the June quarter across its apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp. The company said that number reflected "increased engagement as people around the world sheltered in place."
Amazon (AMZN) posted quarterly revenue of $88.9 billion, a 40% increase from the prior year and a staggering $8 billion more than Wall Street expected as the online retail giant benefited from surging demand.
Apple (AAPL), which has dealt with flat or even declining revenue in recent years, reported an 11% increase in sales for the quarter, with growth across its various hardware products and digital services. Apple CEO Tim Cook called the results a "testament to the important role our products play in our customers' lives" even "in uncertain times."
Google's parent company, Alphabet (GOOGL), was the lone exception, posting the first year-over-year revenue decline in its history as the pandemic and economic downturn hit its core advertising business. But even it beat expectations.
Why it matters: Together with Microsoft, these companies now account for more than a fifth of the S&P 500 and have driven the Nasdaq to a string of recent highs. Thursday's results justify recent gains, and give tech enthusiasts good reason to maintain the momentum.
"It's a bright green light for the bulls this morning to buy tech stocks, as the results were staggering across the board," Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives told clients. He thinks Apple's market value could hit the $2 trillion mark by the end of the year.
Europe's economy suffers record slump in GDP
Europe's economy shrank by 11.9% in the second quarter as the coronavirus pandemic plunged the region into a deep recession, per data released Friday.
The quarter-on-quarter slump in EU GDP is the worst on record, and follows a fall of 3.2% in the first three months of the year.
Compared with the same period a year ago, the drop in output in the April-to-June quarter was 14.4%. That's worse than the 9.5% slump recorded Thursday by the United States.
Across the Atlantic: The US economy contracted at a 32.9% annual rate from April through June, also its worst drop on record.
Recent surveys of business
