Meta Platforms and Microsoft are both showing that obscene spending on new businesses can work—as long as the older ones are humming. That was hardly a given heading into their latest quarterly reports on Wednesday.

Meta is up 199% over the last 5 years. Across the same period, the S&P 500 is up 95%. Will Meta be a market-beater over the next 5 years? If so, will there be a significant gap or do you expect it to be close?

Microsoft significantly exceeded earnings expectations for the June quarter and disclosed its standalone annual Azure revenue for the first time — providing new clarity into how it stacks up against Amazon and Google in the cloud.

Microsoft Corp. reported better-than-expected growth in its cloud business, which it says brought in more than $75 billion in the past year, as the company continues to commercialize artificial intelligence services.