Thread by @jacknicas

Today's economic news:

The U.S. GDP collapsed and the four Big Tech companies reported blowout earnings.

It's rare that the story tells itself this well.

Amazon sales were up 40% and its profit doubled (!) to $5.2 billion, blowing away Wall Street expectations in a way that makes you wonder whether Wall Street knows what it's talking about.

Here's @KYWeise:
nytimes.com/live/2020/07/3…

Facebook surely is hurting given the ad boycotts, right?

Nah. Profits nearly doubled to $5.2 billion.

@MikeIsaac explains:
nytimes.com/live/2020/07/3…

Apple profits were up 12% to $11.25B, as sales of every product and in every region rose.

Apple's CFO told me: “Our products & services are very relevant to our customers’ lives, and in some cases, even more during the pandemic than ever before,”
nytimes.com/live/2020/07/3…

Google had arguably the worst quarter, which for it meant beating analysts' expectations and posting a $7 billion profit in an economic recession.

@daiwaka writes: nytimes.com/live/2020/07/3…

Here’s our ace @bencasselman with the broader economic story.

The U.S. economy just retracted unlike any other time in history — and now much of the government stimulus is running out: nytimes.com/2020/07/30/bus…

On Wednesday, the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google argued to Congress that they weren’t that powerful.

On Thursday, as the worst economic figures in U.S. history arrived, those four companies reported $28.6 billion in quarterly profits.
nytimes.com/2020/07/30/tec…