Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Amazon are the four US stocks with earnings to watch this week. Investors care less about profit beats than about whether record AI spending is producing revenue.

Alphabet already set the bar on July 22. Its shares fell despite beating on nearly every line, punished for lifting full-year capital spending guidance toward $205 billion.

Why Alphabet’s Selloff Reset Big Tech Earnings Expectations

Alphabet posted second-quarter revenue of $119.8 billion, a 24% annual increase. Diluted earnings reached $9.11 a share. Google Cloud revenue climbed 82% to $24.8 billion.

The stock still dropped roughly 4% after hours. Management had raised 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a range of $195 billion to $205 billion. The prior range topped out at $190 billion.

Quarterly capital spending hit $44.9 billion, roughly double the year-earlier figure. Free cash flow turned negative at $5.9 billion.

That combination is the new market test. Beating on revenue no longer protects a stock if spending guidance rises faster.

What the Latest Filings Already Reveal About AI Capex

Most coverage treats AI spending as a forecast. The filings show it has already landed.

BeInCrypto reviewed the most recent quarterly cash flow statements for all five companies. The pattern is consistent. Capital spending is growing far faster than the cash generated to fund it.

Microsoft offers the clearest example. Additions to property and equipment reached $30.9 billion in the March quarter, according to its filing. That is up 84% from $16.7 billion a year earlier.

Operating cash flow grew far more slowly. Subtract capital spending and the remainder fell 22% to $15.8 billion, even though net income rose 23%.

Depreciation tells the same story. Microsoft’s depreciation and amortization charge rose 31% to $10.2 billion. Meta’s climbed 54% to $6.0 billion.

This is a pattern rather than a single quarter. Microsoft spent $80.1 billion on property and equipment across the first nine months of its fiscal year, up 69% from $47.5 billion.

Amazon shows the sharpest deterioration. Trailing free cash flow fell to $1.2 billion from $25.9 billion a year earlier. The company attributed the drop to a $59.3 billion rise in equipment purchases.

Combined Big Tech AI capex guidance for 2026 now runs into the hundreds of billions. The reported figures show that spending arriving on the balance sheet ahead of the revenue meant to justify it.

The revenue side is not standing still, however. Azure grew 40% last quarter, Google Cloud 82%, and Amazon Web Services 28%. The open question concerns timing rather than demand.

Why Headline Profits Are Flattering Meta and Amazon

Here is a detail that rarely surfaces in earnings previews. Both Meta and Amazon posted enormous headline profits last quarter for reasons unrelated to operations.

Meta reported diluted earnings of $10.44 a share. That figure included an $8.03 billion income tax benefit. The company disclosed that earnings would have been $3.13 lower without it.

Strip the benefit and Meta earned closer to $7.31 a share. Wednesday’s consensus of $7.13 therefore looks less like stagnation and more like a normal comparison.

Amazon reported $2.78 a share. That number included $16.8 billion in pre-tax gains from its Anthropic investment.

The lesson holds for both. Operating performance at these companies is currently harder to read from headline earnings. Investors are watching capital spending instead, because that line is unambiguous.

What Wall Street Wants From Each of the 4 US Stocks

Here is what what economists wants from Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Amazon.

• Microsoft (MSFT) and the Azure Test

Microsoft closes its fiscal year on Wednesday. Zacks Investment Research puts consensus at $4.21 a share across 15 analysts, against $3.65 a year earlier.

Azure decides the reaction. The unit grew 40% last quarter. Management guided to constant-currency growth of 39% to 40% for the June period.

One number supports the bull case. Commercial remaining performance obligation, essentially contracted future revenue, nearly doubled to $627 billion. Chief Executive Satya Nadella also said Microsoft’s AI business passed a $37 billion annual revenue run rate.

• Meta (META) Faces Expense Scrutiny

Meta faces tighter expense discipline. It guided to full-year costs of $162 billion to $169 billion and capital expenditure of $125 billion to $145 billion. Reality Labs lost $4.03 billion last quarter alone.

The core business is still compounding quickly. Revenue rose 33% to $56.31 billion last quarter, of which advertising contributed $55.02 billion. An average of 3.56 billion people used its apps each day in March.

• Apple (AAPL) Is the Capital-Light Outlier

Apple is the control case. Analysts expect $1.88 a share, up from $1.57, on consensus revenue of roughly $109 billion.

Its March quarter showed what capital-light growth looks like. Revenue rose 17% to $111.2 billion and earnings per share climbed 22%, according to Apple’s release. Services reached an all-time high.

Apple generated more than $28 billion in operating cash flow that quarter. Rather than building data centers, it authorized a further $100 billion of share buybacks. Watch iPhone and Services for signs the iPhone 17 cycle is holding.

Thursday also marks Tim Cook’s final earnings call as chief executive. John Ternus takes over on September 1.

• Amazon (AMZN) Rests on AWS Margin

Amazon rounds out the week at $1.81 a share, against $1.68. Analysts model roughly $40.5 billion in Amazon Web Services revenue. Company guidance puts operating income between $20 billion and $24 billion.

AWS delivered $37.6 billion of revenue and $14.2 billion in segment operating income last quarter, its fastest growth in 15 quarters. Amazon’s custom chips business, spanning Graviton, Trainium, and Nitro, passed a $20 billion annual revenue run rate.

Why It Matters for the Nasdaq This Week

The Federal Reserve announces its rate decision on Wednesday afternoon, hours before Microsoft and Meta report. Rates currently sit between 3.50% and 3.75%.

Economists broadly expect no change. Traders disagree, and futures pricing splits sharply on the odds of a hike.

Precedent suggests the reaction could split the group. On April 30, Alphabet added more than $300 billion in market value, as BeInCrypto reported. Meta shed $175 billion in the same session. Both had beaten on revenue. Only their spending outlooks differed.

Options markets imply a move of roughly 6.3% for Amazon on results day, above its recent average. Similar volatility is priced across the other three.

Meanwhile the spending keeps expanding. Meta disclosed a new data center venture with BlackRock in El Paso on Tuesday, hours before its own report.

What to Watch Over the Next 30 Days

Three specific disclosures matter more than this week’s earnings per share.

• Fiscal 2027 capital expenditure guidance

Microsoft has signaled roughly $190 billion for calendar 2026. Any step up invites the treatment Alphabet received.

• AWS margin

Analysts model 33.8%. A decline would show depreciation reaching the segment that funds Amazon’s build.

• Meta’s expense range

Management has held $162 billion to $169 billion for two quarters. Widening it would echo April.

Track records diverge going in. Microsoft, Meta, and Apple have each beaten consensus in their last four quarters. Amazon has fallen short in its last two.

Therefore a headline miss would surprise on three of the four. On the question that decides the week, the filed numbers already lean one way.

Capital spending is outgrowing the revenue it funds at every company that has reported. Microsoft’s capex rose 84% while Azure grew 40%, roughly twice the pace. Alphabet’s roughly doubled against 82% cloud growth. Meta’s rose 47% against 33% revenue growth.

That gap indicates the payoff has not arrived yet. Demand signals suggest it may still be coming, and Microsoft’s $627 billion backlog is the strongest argument for patience.

Whether investors extend that patience depends on what these four guide for 2027, not on what they earned last quarter. The market is already questioning AI revenue quality.

Source: BeInCrypto