Most investors can’t keep up.
Why? Earnings season is always chaotic.
Hundreds of reports, thousands of headlines, and not everyone has the time to dig through all of it.
That's why I built Carbon Capital.
Concise investment research built around what matters and nothing else, backed by real capital.
There's no better time to join hundreds of other investors.
Key Data Bites Over The Last Week:
Berkshire Hathaway saw its cash position surge to nearly $400B.
U.S. jobless claims plunged to lowest level since 1969.
Biggest U.S. airlines spent $1.2B more on fuel in Q1.
Bill Ackman raised $5B from Pershing Square’s combined IPO.
Rivian’s CEO earned a whopping $403M last year.
Fed held interest rates steady at 3.5% - 3.75%.
Uber will add 700,000 booking options from Expedia to its app.
Blue Owl has made 10x its investment in SpaceX.
Jane Street paid each employee $2.68M on average.
Nebius has agreed to buy Eigen AI for $643M.
Trump is hiking tariffs on EU cars and trucks to 25%.
Earnings & Guidance Updates:
Spotify said monthly active users climbed 12% to 761M.
S&P Global posted a 13% jump in its global ratings segment.
Robinhood reported a 320% jump in revenue largely tied to prediction markets.
FICO saw its B2B scores revenue explode 72% YoY.
Amazon saw AWS revenue accelerate 28% YoY to $37.6B.
Meta said disruptions in Iran and Russia resulted in a 4% DAU growth.
Chipotle said comparable restaurant sales were up just 0.5%.
Lilly posted a remarkable 56% increase in overall revenue.
Apple reported a robust 17% jump in overall revenue.
Reddit saw revenue surge 69% YoY and DAU increase 17% YoY.
Roblox slashed full-year 2026 bookings by almost $1B.
In today’s newsletter:
🥤 Coca-Cola’s Dividends
☕️ Starbucks’ Turnaround
☁️ Google Cloud Is Unstoppable
🖥️ Microsoft Raises CapEx
💳 Visa vs Mastercard
Let’s jump right in.
📣 A Message From Carbon Finance
A few weeks ago, the Carbon Capital portfolio was 100% cash.
Today, over 40% has been deployed into businesses I've researched and written about for subscribers.
Nearly every business in this portfolio was selected because it was trading at a discount to both its forward valuation and what I believe it's worth.
These aren't names riding the current market cycle.
And despite that, they are high-quality businesses with strong management, positioned for durable long-term growth.
The portfolio is coming together exactly as I hoped, and yet there’s still plenty of capital to deploy.
If you want to see what's in the portfolio and understand the thinking behind every decision, I'd love to have you along for the journey.
Coca-Cola remains resilient.
The company beat earnings and revenue expectations for the first quarter, with adjusted sales rising 12% and organic revenue up 10%.
More importantly, management raised its full year earnings outlook to 8.5% growth, while reaffirming organic revenue growth of 4.5%.
That stability is crucial for the dividend story.
In February, Coca-Cola raised its quarterly dividend by 4% to $0.53 per share, bringing the annual payout to $2.12.
The increase continues a decades-long climb that has made the stock one of Warren Buffett’s most famous and loved income machines.
For Berkshire Hathaway, the dividend alone now pays back its original Coca-Cola investment roughly every two years.
Starbucks is brewing a comeback.
On Tuesday, the company beat earnings and revenue expectations, while global same-store sales rose 6.2%, ahead of the 4% analysts expected.
U.S. traffic improved for the second straight quarter, suggesting the company’s largest market is gaining momentum again.
That strength gave management enough confidence to raise its full year outlook.
Starbucks now expects global and U.S. same-store sales to grow at least 5%, up from its prior 3% forecast.
CEO Brian Niccol called the quarter “the turn in our turnaround,” as the company prioritizes improving cafe operations, refreshing the menu, and bringing seating back to cafes.
Google Cloud is becoming Alphabet’s growth engine.
Alphabet beat revenue expectations in Q1, helped by a cloud business that is scaling quickly and becoming far more profitable.
Google Cloud revenue surged 63% to $20B, well ahead of estimates, while operating income climbed to $6.6B.
Management said enterprise AI became the primary growth driver for cloud for the first time.
Demand is so strong that the company said cloud revenue would have been even higher if it had enough compute capacity.
That demand is forcing Alphabet to spend aggressively.
The company bumped its 2026 CapEx outlook to $180B to $190B and expects another significant increase in 2027.
Microsoft is seeing the same AI tradeoff as Google.
On Thursday, the company beat expectations, with revenue rising 18% to $82.9B and net income climbing to $31.8B.
Azure remained the standout, with cloud services revenue growing 40% as AI demand continued to support infrastructure spending.
Microsoft also said its annualized AI revenue has reached $37B, up 123%.
But like Google, the buildout is getting more expensive.
Management now expects 2026 CapEx to reach $190B, well above prior estimates, largely due to higher memory and infrastructure costs.
Visa and Mastercard are two of the best businesses ever created.
Both companies generate massive profits, high free cash flow margins, and consistent long term growth with very little capital intensity.
But this quarter, Visa had the cleaner report.
The company beat expectations, raised full year guidance, and posted its strongest revenue growth since 2022.
Mastercard also beat estimates, but investors focused on slower cross-border travel spending, which has been pressured by the war in Iran and weaker overseas activity.
The broader picture remains strong.
Both companies are still growing at impressive rates while trading near their lowest valuations in years.
💵 Takeover Bid↗ – GameStop is preparing an offer to takeover eBay.
✂️ AI Tradeoff↗ – Mark Zuckerberg linked Meta’s layoffs to higher AI spending and said more cuts are possible.
💸 Breaking Point↗ – America’s national debt is now larger than the entire economy.
☁️ Cloud Freedom↗ – OpenAI and Microsoft reached a new deal that allows OpenAI to sell products across any cloud provider.
🇨🇳 Beijing Veto↗ – China has blocked Meta’s $2B acquisition of AI startup Manus.
😬 Funding Risk↗ – OpenAI missed recent user and revenue targets, and its CFO is concerned it may not be able to afford future computing contracts.
😮💨 Ozempic Breath↗ – Hershey says GLP-1s are driving higher gum and mint sales due to bad breath.
Notable Companies Reporting Earnings Week of May 3rd, 2026:
Major Trades Published 4/27 - 5/1. Trades may be those of family members. [Source: Capitol Trades]
Buys
Jared Moskowitz (D)
Company: ASML Holding ($ASML)
Amount Purchased: $4K - $60K
Company: Palo Alto Networks ($PANW)
Amount Purchased: $3K - $45K
Sells
Lloyd Smucker (R)
Company: Fulton Financial ($FULT)
Amount Sold: $250K - $600K
Major Trades Published 4/27 - 5/1
Buys
Pershing Square USA ($PSUS)
S&P Global ($SPGI)
Insider: Martina Cheung (CEO)
# of Shares Purchased: 2,322
$ Amount: $998,297
SEC Forms: [1]
Sells
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