Amazon, Alphabet EPS surge on Anthropic paper gains
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- Amazon posted a 242% Q2 EPS increase and acknowledged more than $50 billion in paper gains derived mainly from its investment in Anthropic.
- Alphabet put up a 300% jump in Q2 EPS, helped in large part by unrealized gains from its stakes in SpaceX and Anthropic.
- The gains are paper, not operational — described in the source as 'unrealized gains' tied to Anthropic's rising valuation rather than revenue or cash flow.
- The pattern is recurring across Big Tech: unusually large earnings growth this quarter attributed at least partly to AI developer Anthropic, 'at least on paper.'
Why it matters: These headline-grabbing EPS numbers — 242% for Amazon, 300% for Alphabet — are mark-to-market valuation adjustments, not operating earnings. Investors benchmarking S&P 500 profit growth are partly measuring how much private-market AI company valuations have risen, not how much profit Big Tech is generating from its core businesses.
