U.S. stocks pulled back Wednesday morning as traders braced for the first heavyweight reports of Big Tech earnings season, with Alphabet and Tesla scheduled to deliver results after the closing bell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 futures slipped 0.1% and 0.3% respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite eased 0.6%, according to Yahoo Finance.
The retreat follows a strong Tuesday session in which the S&P 500 climbed 0.83% to 7,505 and the Nasdaq jumped 1.3%, powered by a rebound in semiconductor names. The Dow tacked on 384 points, or 0.74%, to close at 52,223, its highest level of the month.
Alphabet and Tesla in Focus
Alphabet will host its earnings call at 4:30 p.m. ET, with Wall Street looking for roughly $101 billion in revenue and about $2.10 per share in earnings, according to the Zacks consensus. Bank of America is even more bullish, penciling in $102.1 billion, betting on accelerating Google Cloud growth.
For Tesla, analysts expect approximately $26.4 billion in revenue and $0.53 in adjusted EPS. The setup is complicated. Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in the second quarter, a 25% jump from a year earlier, marking its strongest second quarter ever and — notably — its first year-over-year delivery growth in two years, per Electrek. Energy storage deployments hit 13.5 gigawatt-hours, up more than 40% from 9.6 GWh in Q2 2025, just shy of the roughly 13.8 GWh analysts had wanted.
Both prints are being framed as a critical read on whether the AI spending boom is producing returns. "With AI spending skyrocketing, traders are looking for Alphabet's results to demonstrate a clear return on its massive investments," Bloomberg reported. Intel follows Thursday, giving the market three consecutive days of megacap AI signal.
Oil Adds an Inflation Wrinkle
Complicating the earnings narrative is a fresh jump in energy prices. Brent crude climbed above $92 a barrel Wednesday, reigniting concerns that inflation pressures — which had eased in the June CPI report — could reaccelerate through the back half of the year. Rising oil, combined with fresh tariff headlines, gave defensive positioning a tailwind heading into the tech reports.
Analysts note the market is unforgiving heading into the print. "Companies that fail to clear Wall Street's elevated bar are being punished," according to TheStreet's Wednesday morning wrap. Bar-clearing on revenue alone won't be enough for Tesla, where the delivery bounce is already priced in and the debate has shifted to automotive gross margin and free cash flow. Tesla's cash flow line is particularly in focus, with reports flagging a $3.4 billion shift in operating cash flow year-over-year.
What to Watch
Traders will be parsing three things after the bell: Alphabet's cloud growth rate and any commentary on AI capex payback, Tesla's automotive gross margin ex-credits, and any updated full-year guidance from either company. With the S&P 500 sitting near record territory and the Nasdaq holding above 25,500, forward guidance — not backward-looking beats — will drive the next leg.
Intel's Thursday afterhours report closes out the trio. A clean sweep of upside surprises could extend the summer rally; a stumble from any one of the three could trigger the kind of sharp single-stock repricing that has defined this earnings cycle so far.
Sources: Yahoo Finance (July 22, 2026 market open coverage), TheStreet (Stock Market Today, July 22, 2026), Bloomberg (Stock Market Live Updates for July 22), Electrek (Tesla Q2 2026 earnings preview).