Big Tech just closed out its second-quarter 2026 earnings season, and the results looked, on paper, like a triumph. Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet all posted numbers that blew past Wall Street's estimates, and headlines celebrated growth rates that haven't been seen in years.
Dig one layer deeper, and a strange pattern connects all three reports. A meaningful chunk of that growth has nothing to do with ads, cloud contracts, or software subscriptions. It comes from something these companies don't even sell.
S&P 500 earnings grew more than 48% year over year last quarter. Exclude the investment gains tied to private AI stakes, and that growth falls to roughly 29%, according to recent **** ysis, bringing underlying earnings growth much closer to expectations.
Gil Luria, managing director and head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, put it plainly. "The headline earnings numbers were very much inflated by equity gains in OpenAI, Anthropic and **** eX," he told CNBC, adding that these swings tend to even out over time, which is why most **** ysts strip them out of non-GAAP estimates.
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