Plenty riding on Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet earnings on Tuesday

Apple Inc, Microsoft Corporation and Alphabet Inc, three of the four largest companies on Wall Street, will unveil earnings after the closing bell today.  The trio are worth a combined US$6.5 trillion and, combined with Amazon (which reports earnings later in the week), represent around 20% of the entire weight of the S&P 500 Apple earned the distinction of becoming the world’s first trillion-dollar company two years ago and today its valuation is tipped to soon push through the $3 trillion mark. Analysts on the Street are predicting Apple will weigh in with earnings per share of $1 for what is its third quarter on revenues of $73 billion but there's a lot more to look out for - see our full preview on the Cupertino colossus. Although one year older, Microsoft followed its younger Silicon Valley sibling in topping US$2 trillion and analysts expect the tech titan to underline its status with bumper June results. Driving its growth is its Azure cloud business but again for the full taster of what to look for, here's the preview for what is Microsoft's fourth quarter earnings. While Apple stock is up 14% so far this year and Microsoft over 30%, Google owner Alphabet has been outperforming big-tech peers since the start of 2021, with its share price up more than 50%. In part this has been driven by the internet giant’s strong first quarter showing in which it delivered 34% revenue growth year-on-year and EPS more than doubled to US$26.29. Investors are eyeing more of the same for the second quarter - here's the Alphabet preview as it jostles with Amazon as the third and fourth-largest US tech companies.