Well, next week is shaping up to be grim, at least when it comes to big tech earnings reports. Snap kicked off the digital ad sector’s first-quarter report today with what looked like a solid result of 38% higher revenue than a year earlier. But Snap executives rained on their own party with a relatively gloomy projection of just 20% to 25% growth for the second quarter, thanks to what has become a familiar litany of macroeconomic headaches: supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, inflationary pressures, rising interest rates plus the impact of the Ukrainian war. 

Given that Snap’s growth lately has been healthier than what we’ve seen from firms including Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Twitter, those companies may have even worse news when they report next week. Meta, don’t forget, projected first-quarter growth of between 3% and 11% due to similar macroeconomic ills, along with rising competition from the likes of TikTok and the impact of Apple’s ad-tracking restrictions. There are signs that Meta has been doing better in how it deals with the Apple changes, pulling back some ad dollars it had lost. But the macroeconomic challenges have worsened.