The Stock Market's New Darlings: Snap, Reddit, and Alphabet

Starting your day like millions of people: waking up, commuting to work, and scrolling through social media. You laugh at cute cat pictures on Reddit, search for random facts on Google, and watch funny cat videos on YouTube. These routine activities might seem unrelated to stocks and finance, but they're not. Companies behind these platforms—Snap, Reddit, and Alphabet—just reported impressive third-quarter earnings, beating Wall Street's expectations. Let's start with Alphabet, Google's parent company. Their revenue skyrocketed thanks to the cloud division, which saw a 35% year-over-year increase. Advertising revenue also grew by over 10%, proving that businesses still rely heavily on online ads. Snap, on the other hand, had an even bigger surge in advertisers—more than doubling from last year. With two million more daily active users, they now have more eyeballs to show ads to, making each ad worth more. Now, Reddit's transformation is nothing short of remarkable. They swung from a loss to a profit, thanks to a 47% increase in daily active users and better revenue per user. These user increases meant more advertisers and more money flowing into these companies. After the bell rang, stock prices soared. Reddit's shares jumped nearly 25%, Snap's by over 10%, and Alphabet's by around 5. 8%. Today, it's Meta and Microsoft's turn to report. While Microsoft isn't big in ads, Meta—with its insightful Instagram ads—could keep the positive trend going.