Overview
- Microsoft reports Wednesday after the Federal Reserve’s Oct. 28 policy announcement, delivering results under a new two‑segment structure and disclosing Azure revenue in dollars for the first time while offering voluntary exit packages to about 60,000 employees.
- The Fed’s decision before markets close raises the odds that central‑bank language about future rates will combine with Microsoft’s update to shape trading in Alphabet and Amazon when they report in the same 48‑hour window.
- Wall Street has set high bars: analysts expect roughly $90.6 billion in revenue for Microsoft, about $128 billion for Alphabet and roughly $202 billion for Amazon, with visible cloud growth forecasts of roughly mid‑40s percent for Azure, roughly 90% for Google Cloud and high‑30s for AWS.
- Cash flow and capex are central tests: analysts expect Microsoft to generate significant cash this quarter while Alphabet and Amazon are forecast to show consecutive quarters of negative free cash flow, even as the three firms plan 2026 capital spending in the hundreds of billions.
- Markets are watching for signs that cloud revenue and enterprise AI monetization can cover rising financing costs and heavy data‑center builds, with recent investor selloffs after Meta’s higher capex warning underscoring the risk to suppliers, bond markets and thousands of workers.