Big-spending technology companies may be less lavish with their money

Technology's big-spending trio of Google, Facebook, and Amazon.com appear to be tightening their belts - at least a notch - in a concession to cost-conscious investors and a strong dollar that's taking a big bite out of their revenue.

Hints of restraint were sprinkled throughout the companies' latest quarterly reports released last week. Expenses at all three are still expected to rise faster than revenue this year, but Google Inc, Facebook Inc and Amazon.com Inc signaled that spending increases might not be as dramatic as expected. The message boosted all of their stocks, which had been in Wall Street's penalty box for the companies' free-spending ways.

The shift can be traced to economic turmoil in Europe and Asia that has caused the dollar's value to rise against many other currencies, said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. Revenue coming in from overseas will translate into fewer dollars - potentially chopping about 4 percent off of 2015 revenue compared with 2014, Gillis estimates.