#每周来晒 #美股财报季

I’m most bullish on Microsoft. Among the Big Five, it has the shortest distance between AI investment and revenue: Azure’s quarterly growth is 43%, and Copilot’s shift from fixed-seat to “seat + usage” billing means AI revenue is beginning to have the structural characteristic of automatically expanding with usage frequency. By contrast, Alphabet’s cloud business is growing quickly, but its capital expenditure for a single quarter ($44.9 billion) has already exceeded operating cash flow, sending free cash flow negative for the first time; Amazon’s capital expenditure is set to surge to $220 billion in 2026, while free cash flow over the past 12 months was negative $7.6 billion. Microsoft is also shouldering capital expenditure on the order of $175 billion, but it has at least demonstrated a clearer path to monetization rather than simply “burning cash for growth.”

Whether AI investment can deliver sustained growth is shifting from “whether it can” to “how long it will take to cover the costs.” The four major cloud providers’ combined capital expenditure in 2026 is approaching $750 billion, but depreciation, electricity, and financing costs will subsequently continue to erode earnings. Alphabet and Amazon’s cash flows have already shown that AI demand is real, but the pace of commercial returns is significantly slower than the pace of capital outflows. The prerequisite for sustained growth is for revenue growth to consistently outpace depreciation growth; so far, only Microsoft and NVIDIA meet this condition, and only within a relatively narrow range.

Beating earnings expectations absolutely does not mean a stock price must rise. Meta beat expectations for both third-quarter revenue and guidance, yet its stock plunged 6%. The trigger was a jump in its future lease and contractual spending commitments to about $825 billion, with the market voting with its feet to express concern that “revenue beating expectations is being swallowed up by even higher spending commitments.” The valuation anchor for tech stocks has now shifted from “whether growth is strong” to “the quality of growth and its cash cost.” If a beat comes alongside deteriorating free cash flow or raised capital expenditure guidance, the stock price may instead come under pressure. Conversely, a path like Apple’s—restraining AI spending and monetizing an ecosystem of 2.5 billion active devices—can make financial discipline itself a source of valuation support, even if its AI narrative is less aggressive.