Tech's hyperscalers face Wall Street for first time since U.S. Iran war sent oil prices soaring

alphabet, amazon, meta and microsoft all report earnings after the close on wednesday — their first time facing wall street since the u.s. invaded iran. oil prices have jumped roughly 50% since the war started and about 80% this year. helium production from a qatar plant was halted after iranian attacks damaged the facility; qatar produced over a third of the world's supply before the war. the global memory shortage has also worsened, with idc forecasting dram will cost $9.71 per gigabyte in 2026, up from $3.76 in 2025. the hyperscalers are still spending heavily. amazon ceo andy jassy defended plans to spend $200 billion this year, a 50%+ increase from 2025, writing "we're not going to be conservative." aws has no plans to raise prices despite higher costs. meta is cutting 10% of its workforce (roughly 8,000 employees) to offset ai investments. microsoft offered voluntary buyouts to about 7% of its u.s. workforce (8,750 employees). analysts at keybanc are watching for "impacts from the middle east" and "impacts from memory pricing on the cloud." baird tech strategist ted mortonson called this "one of the most mispriced cycles" he's seen, noting investors show none of the "fear panic and capitulation" from the dot-com bust. he described the market as in a "complacency phase," with bets that trump will back down. still, nvidia hit a record on monday above a $5 trillion valuation, and the nasdaq is up 15% in april — its best month since april 2020.