Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — Microsoft and Alphabet have different fortunes during the first quarter. TikTok is taking a larger share of YouTube’s advertising revenues. T-Mobile and Qualcomm (NASDAQ) continue the earnings surge, as does Ford and Meta. As the EU moves closer to an embargo against Russian oil, Russia shuts off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria. The latest mortgage data and pending home sales are due. This is what you should know about financial markets Wednesday 26 April. 

1. Meta may be in trouble because of Big Tech’s large divergence

Alphabet and Microsoft, tech giants in Silicon Valley, reported sharp differences in fortunes in the quarter. This was due to the booming Cloud hosting business and strong performances from LinkedIn (a sign of the trends in the labor markets).

In contrast, Alphabet’s advertising revenues suffered from both increased competition from TikTok as well as increased consumer willingness to leave YouTube after they have been unlocked.

Premarket trading saw Microsoft share rise 5.3% while Alphabet dropped 3.0%, to an 11-month high.

The relatively weak performance by Alphabet’s ad business looks likely to weigh on Facebook (NASDAQ:) owner Meta Platforms in the runup to its earnings after the close Wednesday.

2. Russia uses oil embargo to weaponize its energy resources

Russia is now a partner in Poland and Bulgaria. This was after these two Soviet satellites had refused to pay their gas bills in dollars, euros, or rubles.

European gas futures rose sharply for the second day after being weaponized by energy companies that had over 40 years worth of Soviet and Russian reliability in fulfilling their contracts.

The move should be seen as a warning shot to Russia’s biggest customers, Germany and Italy, coming a day after Germany sealed a deal with Poland that will greatly reduce its dependence on Russian oil, and thus make it easier for Germany to drop its opposition to an embargo. Under that deal, Germany will be able to source crude for its refineries from Poland’s import terminal at Gdansk.

The escalation of the Ukraine conflict’s economic dimension nonetheless weighed heavily on the , which fell to a five-year low against the dollar, and .

3. Stocks are set to rise – slightly – following positive late earnings.

U.S. stocks are expected to bounce back from Tuesday’s drubbing, although they look far from recouping all of their losses – Tesla (NASDAQ:), for one, bouncing less than 3% after its 12.8% slump in the previous session.

At 6:15 am ET (1115 GMT), the points were up 400 or 1.2% while they were up 1.0%.

After posting stronger-than-expected results in the first quarter, Visa (NYSE) and Mondelez(NASDAQ:), both are recovering more in the premarket than they lost Tuesday, but General Motors (NYSE) and Chipotle stock (NYSE) stocks are still not back at their gain lines despite beating. Texas Instrument continues to lose after being warned of constraints in supply chains late Tuesday. Mattel (NASDAQ:) is surging after a WSJ report saying it’s in talks to sell itself to private equity.

, General Dynamics (NYSE:), American Tower (NYSE:), CME Group (NASDAQ:), Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:) and Humana (NYSE:) – among many others – all report early, while , Amgen (NASDAQ:), PayPal (NASDAQ:) and Ford head the late reporters. 

4. Dollar reaches new heights: Retail and wholesale inventories are at record highs, with pending home sales.

At 10 am, data for March will give new insight into the pace of weakness in the housing market. They’ve fallen for the last four months against a background of surging (up 20% year-on-year according to S&P Global (NYSE:) SPGI) and rising mortgage costs.

The Mortgage Banking Association’s weekly data on and rates are due at 7 AM ET. They reached a new 13-year record of 5.20% in the week ending September 13, while applications are down for six consecutive weeks.

Data at 8:30 could also prove to be of interest for their insight into how fast final consumer demand is cooling.

The overnight high was driven by expectations that Europe would experience monetary tightening, and then recession.

5. On EU embargo prospects, oil prices rise to $100

The prospect of an EU oil embargo becoming more likely made crude oil prices rise above $100 per barrel. Any such move would not only force European buyers to source alternative supplies elsewhere, it would also hit Russia’s production capability, given that its storage tanks and pipelines would likely hit capacity almost immediately, tightening the global market further.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that such issues have already caused a sharp drop in Russian oil supply this month. Russia’s largest producer Rosneft, meanwhile, failed to find a single buyer for its regular export tender this week.

Futures rose 0.5% to $102.19 per barrel by 6:25 AM ET. They were 0.5% higher at $105.16 per barrel at the same time.

That’s despite a in U.S. inventories last week, according to the American Petroleum Institute. The U.S. government’s data are due at 10:30 AM ET, as usual.