Retailing giant Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) is scheduled to report 19Q3 earnings after the close on Oct. 24. The company known for industry disruption is expected to increase third quarter ad-revenue 71.7% from the prior year and to far outpace the 14.2% outlook for the S&P 500 media entertainment industry group. Analysts also anticipate that Amazon will outperform the S&P 500’s interactive media & services industry (19.5%), which consists of names such as Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O, GOOG.O), Facebook Inc (FB.O), and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N).

Nearly two thirds of S&P 500 companies (65%) have reported 2018 Q2 earnings and the quarter is on track to set new records. Companies are beating high earnings expectations at a record rate and earnings growth is expected to be the strongest second quarter since 2010 Q2. The quarter may also see the first trillion dollar company with Apple Inc. (AAPL.OQ) shares on the rise following their 2018 Q2 results. Exhibit 1: S&P 500 18Q2 YoY Earnings Expectation History In a typical quarter, analysts become more bearish as the earnings season approaches, making downward revisions to earnings estimates. However, the

Alphabet is stuck at the letter G. The holding company of Google was created to safeguard against conventionality and let moonshot ideas, like self-driving cars, flourish. Almost three years in, it’s basically still just Google. Which means, in turn, that the A in Alphabet stands mainly for advertising. Back in 2015, Google co-founder Larry Page explained the formation of holding company Alphabet was to keep things “crazy.” After all, products like the Android operating system and Google Maps had become less zany as they attracted billions of users. The purpose of Alphabet was to keep that same spirit alive while

Much of the stock market’s recent boom resided in an acronym: FAANG, for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, aka Alphabet. As important as they’ve become, investors tired of this trade can look forward in 2018 to a new set of letters to jumble into a more exciting investment thesis. Call it SLAW. Four of the most highly valued private companies – Spotify, Lyft, Airbnb and WeWork – are in various stages of preparing to go public. Although none may ever match the scale of a FAANG or a BAT – as China’s Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are known –