Microsoft’s latest quarter forced the market to ask a blunt question: can Azure’s still-impressive top-line growth justify an unprecedented surge in capital spending — and at what cost to margins and free cash flow?
Background / Overview
Microsoft reported a strong quarter in absolute terms —...
Microsoft’s recent plunge wasn’t a mystery of market panic so much as a punctuation mark on a very visible — and very deliberate — strategy: pour unprecedented capital into AI infrastructure now, accept compressed free cash flow and margin pressure in the near term, and hope the payoff comes...
Microsoft’s stock was hit with fresh analyst skepticism this week after two well‑known sell‑side desks — Stifel and Melius Research — downgraded the name within days of each other, calling out AI‑related execution risk, sharply higher capital expenditures, and uncertainty around Copilot...
Microsoft’s latest quarterly report delivered another headline-grabbing mix: impressive top-line growth driven by cloud and AI demand, paired with a sharp jump in capital expenditures and an Azure growth rate that barely cleared street expectations—enough to send the stock lower in pre-market...