Microsoft

$AMZN$CRWV$GOOG$GOOGL$MSFT$NBIS

US Markets35d ago

Nebius Second-Quarter Revenue Exceeds Estimates Amid Robust AI Cloud Gains

Nebius (NBIS) reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter revenue on Wednesday as robust demand for artificial intelligence capacity drove more than 500% year-over-year growth in the Dutch company's cloud business.The cloud computing company's overall revenue surged to $582.3 million for the quarter ended June from $105.1 million the year before and topping the consensus on FactSet of $569.9 million. The top-line growth is attributable to increased capacity and higher pricing, Nebius said in a shareholder letter."Demand for AI capacity continues to grow exponentially, and we are converting that demand into contracted, profitable growth," Chief Executive Arkady Volozh said in the letter.AI cloud revenue, which accounted for 98% of the group topline, soared 514% to $574.9 million.The company closed four cloud deals in the second quarter with an average total contract value of more than $1 billion each. These deals reflect a yield of $20 million to $25 million per megawatt with upfront payments that cover 50% to 60% of associated capital expenditures, Volozh said during an earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript.Nebius' Nasdaq-listed shares gained 24% in Wednesday trade, while the stock has surged 185% so far this year.The company signed an up to $27 billion AI infrastructure deal with Meta Platforms (META) and secured a $2 billion investment from Nvidia (NVDA) earlier in the year.Nebius posted a net loss of $0.68 a share for the June quarter, compared with earnings of $2.38 the year before. Five analysts polled by FactSet expected a loss of $1.46.For 2026, the Dutch tech firm continues to project revenue of between $3 billion and $3.4 billion, Chief Financial Officer Dado Alonso said on the call. The Street is looking for $3.36 billion.Capital expenditures are still pegged at $20 billion to $25 billion for the current year."We remain confident in our ability to accelerate capacity deployment in the second half of the year and expect capacity deployed late in (the second quarter) to begin contributing to revenue in (the third quarter)," Alonso told analysts.On Tuesday, CoreWeave (CRWV) reported better-than-expected second-quarter results as revenue more than doubled year on year amid strong demand for cloud computing.Key industry players have reported strong annual cloud growth rates for their most recent quarter, with Amazon.com's (AMZN) Amazon Web Services sales surging 37% to $42.23 billion, Microsoft's (MSFT) Azure soaring 43% and Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) Google cloud revenue jumping 82%.Price: $234.80, Change: $+41.57, Percent Change: +21.51%

US Markets36d ago

CoreWeave Second-Quarter Results Top Estimates Amid Cloud Computing Demand

CoreWeave (CRWV) reported better-than-expected second-quarter results as revenue more than doubled year on year amid strong demand for cloud computing.For the quarter ending June 30, CoreWeave's net loss widened to $1.14 per share from $0.60 a year earlier, compared with the consensus on FactSet that called for a per-share loss of $1.46. Revenue jumped to $2.58 billion from $1.21 billion, surpassing the average analyst estimate of $2.55 billion."CoreWeave reached an important inflection point this quarter as our scale began to translate into expanding operating leverage," Chief Executive Michael Intrator said. "Customer demand is accelerating, as enterprise adoption broadens and we continue to deepen our technology platform."The company's revenue backlog rose to about $104 billion at the end of the June, compared with $99.4 billion as of March 31.Shares of CoreWeave were up 9.4% in after-hours trading, and had gained 26% this year through Tuesday close.CoreWeave said Monday it closed a $2.6 billion loan facility to fund the expansion of its AI cloud platform, bringing the total amount of capital secured to more than $30 billion this year.BofA Securities expects stronger demand and pricing dynamics at CoreWeave in the second half than the first as "inference continues to proliferate."CoreWeave, which rents cloud-computing power for AI, is targeting 1.7 gigawatts of active power by the end of 2026, implying "a meaningful acceleration in capacity deployment over the next few quarters," BofA said last month.Key industry players have reported strong annual cloud growth rates for their most recent quarter, with Amazon.com's (AMZN) Amazon Web Services sales surging 37% to $42.23 billion, Microsoft's (MSFT) Azure soaring 43% and Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) Google cloud revenue jumping 82%.

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US Markets36d ago

Share of Home Sales Near Large Data Centers Seen Expanding, Realtor.com Report Says

The share of US home sales in areas near large data centers has more than doubled since 2018 and is likely grow further amid the rapid infrastructure buildout, News Corp's (NWS, NWSA) Realtor.com said Tuesday.The share of home sales within five miles of a data center with a capacity of at least 50 megawatts has risen to 1.5% this year from 0.67% eight years ago. That share is projected to expand to 2.3% through next year, according to the online real estate portal.The number of large data centers operating across the US has reached 347 during the period, up from 49, the report showed."The data center buildout has moved fast and it is raising policy, community, and housing-market questions as it spreads and accelerates," Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said.Robust demand for artificial intelligence and cloud services has prompted US technology giants like Amazon.com (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) to continue expanding their data center footprints in the US and globally."Our analysis so far offers some reassurance: in the communities we studied, a new data center opening nearby wasn't associated with meaningfully higher or lower home values than similar neighborhoods that didn't get one," Hale said. "But the facilities coming online next are bigger, more remote and landing in communities with less experience managing an industrial neighbor, so that track record may not hold as a guide to what comes next."The buildout has now been concentrated in areas that are less densely populated and with below-median household incomes, unlike several years ago when data centers largely landed in the cities, the Realtor.com report found."The places absorbing this next wave of data centers look different from the places that absorbed the last one," Glen Morgenstern, an economist intern at Realtor.com, said. "They tend to be lower-income, lower-density and farther from a city center, which usually also means fewer resources on hand -- fewer attorneys, less organized civic engagement, and housing markets that react more slowly to new information."That indicates that those communities "may be less equipped to respond if a facility turns out to be a difficult neighbor," according to Morgenstern.The average large data center that launched in 2018 drew roughly 24MW of power, with that tally climbing to 60MW by 2026. Electricity and water use are also turning out to be "more visible pressure points," especially in Sun Belt markets already facing water issues, according to the report.Last month, a Redfin.com survey showed that a majority of US residents object to AI data centers being built near their homes despite the economic benefits of such projects.Price: $32.55, Change: $+0.05, Percent Change: +0.15%

$AMZN$GOOG$GOOGL$META$MSFT$NWS$NWSA

Wire36d ago

ZoomInfo Says Model Context Protocol Connector Now Available in Microsoft Copilot Studio

ZoomInfo Technologies (GTM) said Tuesday that its GTM model context protocol connector for Microsoft (MSFT) Copilot Studio is now available.The integration enables mutual customers to make ZoomInfo tools available to approved agents and workflows, allowing natural-language requests to search companies, identify relevant contacts and support sales research in experiences where the configured agent is deployed.Shares of ZoomInfo were down 3% in Tuesday trading.Price: $4.10, Change: $-0.13, Percent Change: -3.07%

$GTM$MSFT

Wire36d ago

OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Ads in UK, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, South Korea

Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon-backed (AMZN) OpenAI said Tuesday it has expanded its ChatGPT Ads to the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea.The company said it is continuing to expand to more markets this year, and businesses interested in advertising in ChatGPT can sign up for updates.Price: $502.41, Change: $-3.65, Percent Change: -0.72%

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Sectors37d ago

Sector Update: Tech Stocks Decline Late Afternoon

Tech stocks were lower late Monday afternoon, with the State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) decreasing 0.2% and the State Street SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) falling 2.3%.The Philadelphia Semiconductor index was shedding 1.7%.In corporate news, Microsoft (MSFT) intends to greatly increase production of its internally designed AI chips next year and hopes to persuade Anthropic and other large cloud customers to use them, The Information reported. Microsoft shares were up 1.1%.Intel (INTC) said Monday it is offering $15 billion of common stock in a public offering, the proceeds of which will go toward general corporate purposes. Intel shares were down 3.4%.Nvidia (NVDA) is working with some of the world's largest financial firms to build a $500 billion funding package for AI infrastructure development, the Financial Times reported. Nvidia shares were shedding 2.4%.A US appeals court on Monday rejected a bid by Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google and ByteDance's TikTok to reverse a lower-court's ruling that forces them to face roughly 2,400 lawsuits, according to media reports. Meta shares were up 0.3%, and Alphabet added 0.4%.

$GOOGL$INTC$META$MSFT$NVDA

Sectors37d ago

Sector Update: Tech

US Markets37d ago

Take-Two Outlook Poised for Upside as GTA VI Approaches, UBS Says

Take-Two Interactive Software's (TTWO) unchanged full-year guidance could prove to be conservative following its upbeat remarks about the upcoming "Grand Theft Auto VI" video game, UBS Securities said in a note e-mailed Monday.On Friday, the video game publisher's fiscal first-quarter results surpassed Wall Street's expectations. The company reaffirmed its fiscal 2027 outlook, including its net bookings range of $8 billion to $8.2 billion.The Rockstar Games unit is seeing an "unprecedented and astonishing" level of pre-orders for the highly anticipated GTA VI title, Take-Two Chief Extractive Strauss Zelnick said on an earnings conference call, according to a FactSet transcript.Despite the upbeat comments about the game, the company reiterated its annual guidance, UBS said in a note to clients."We continue to believe guidance will prove conservative and expect more significant updates closer to GTA VI launch," UBS analysts Christopher Schoell and John Hodulik wrote. "This was the case for both GTA V and (Red Dead Redemption 2), when the company outperformed its initial bookings outlook by several hundred million."GTA VI is scheduled to be released Nov. 19. The game will be available on Sony's (SONY) PlayStation and Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox platforms.UBS sees "significant" pent up demand for the title and continues to believe the game will be even bigger than GTA V given factors such as the social effects in gaming nowadays.The brokerage continues to expect that GTA VI will sell 35 million units in fiscal 2027 and 60 million units in the first two years. "Along with our estimated $84 (average selling price), we look for ($2.1 billion) of full game sales this year and ($1 billion in 2028)," the analysts said.UBS has a buy rating and a $300 price target on the Take-Two stock. The company's shares were up 2% in Monday late-afternoon trade."We are bullish as we expect new GTA VI announcements, trailers and gameplay to drive sentiment and confidence in the profit/(free cash flow) ramp," the UBS analysts said. "The consolidated nature of the industry is also supportive of valuation with (Take-Two) being the remaining publicly traded US AAA developer."Price: $251.68, Change: $+5.18, Percent Change: +2.10%

$MSFT$SONY$TTWO

OpenAI Unveils Two-Tier Daybreak Access for Cyber Defenders, Launches GPT-5.6-Cyber

OpenAI on Monday expanded its Daybreak program with two access tiers for cybersecurity defenders and launched GPT-5.6-Cyber, a specialized model for authorized vulnerability research.Daybreak Blue offers general purpose models with defense-tailored safeguards, while Daybreak Red provides purpose-trained models including GPT-5.6-Cyber, the Microsoft-backed said.OpenAI said it used GPT-5.6-Cyber to uncover two previously unknown Chrome V8 vulnerabilities, reported to Google and assigned as CVE-2026-15903, along with issues in a mobile operating system, a database, and an operating system kernel.The company will require hardware security keys for all Daybreak accounts starting Sept. 1.OpenAI said GPT-5.6-Cyber was assessed as High for cybersecurity capability under its Preparedness Framework, below the Critical threshold.Price: $505.99, Change: $+6.00, Percent Change: +1.20%

OpenAI Launches Premium Seats for ChatGPT Business

OpenAI said Monday it is rolling out Premium seats for ChatGPT Business, giving users 5 times more usage than Standard seats and eliminating the five-hour usage cap.Premium seats cost $125 per user monthly, or $100 when billed annually, the Microsoft-backed (MSFT) company said. Standard seats remain $25 per user per month, or $20 per user per month when billed annually.Price: $508.41, Change: $+8.42, Percent Change: +1.68%

$AMZN$GOOG$GOOGL$META$MSFT$NVDA

Update: Market Chatter: Microsoft Plans to Ramp Up Homegrown AI Chip Production Next Year

(Update with Microsoft's response to a request for comment.)Microsoft (MSFT) intends to greatly increase production of its internally designed artificial intelligence chips next year and hopes to persuade Anthropic and other large cloud customers to use them, The Information reported Monday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the plans.The tech giant plans to unveil its new Maia 300 chip this fall, possibly as soon as September, the report said, citing one of the people.Microsoft is currently in talks with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) to secure manufacturing capacity for over 300,000 of the chips for 2027 delivery, the report said, citing the second person. That figure is significantly higher than the tens of thousands of Maia 200 chips Microsoft has produced so far, the report said."Microsoft continues to invest in custom silicon as part of our long-term AI infrastructure strategy. While we don't share production volumes, the figures reported don't reflect the scale of our program," Azure Maia General Manager Andrew Wall said in an emailed statement to. "We expect our Azure Maia deployments to support AI workload demand measured in gigawatts."(Market Chatter news is derived from conversations with market professionals globally. This information is believed to be from reliable sources but may include rumor and speculation. Accuracy is not guaranteed.)Price: $508.01, Change: $+8.02, Percent Change: +1.60%

$MSFT$TSM

US Markets37d ago

Nvidia Poised for Second-Quarter Sales Beat, Upbeat Guidance, BofA Says

Nvidia (NVDA) is likely to deliver a fiscal second-quarter revenue beat and issue an upbeat guidance amid Vera Rubin shipments and "solid" cloud capital expenditure trends, BofA Securities said in a note e-mailed Monday.The chipmaking giant is expected outperform sales expectations by $3 billion to $4 billion for its second quarter. In May, Nvidia said it anticipated revenue of $91 billion, plus or minus 2% for the quarter, while the current consensus on FactSet is for $91.91 billion.For the ongoing three-month period, BofA forecasts Nvidia to issue a revenue outlook about 3% to 4% above consensus, or $107 billion to $108 billion, based on the company's recent guidance trend. Wall Street is looking for $103.68 billion.The outlook factors in the start of the next-generation Vera Rubin shipments, new Vera central processing unit ramps, and "solid" cloud CapEx trends, BofA analyst Vivek Arya said in a note to clients.Recently, Amazon.com (AMZN) increased its full-year CapEx guidance, while Meta Platforms (META) raised the lower end of its own outlook range for the metric. Microsoft (MSFT) said it anticipated CapEx in its fiscal 2027 to increase year over year, while Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) indicated rising artificial intelligence capital spending.Spot rental prices of graphic processing units are still hovering around their all-time high levels, reflecting persistent robust demand for compute, and point to cloud pricing upside that could address continued return on investment concerns around Nvidia, BofA said.The brokerage expects the tech bellwether to hold a "healthy" gross margin of around 73% to 74% over time, with limited impacts from rising memory costs.Nvidia has likely made around $70 billion in equity investments into ecosystem partners so far, including the recent $30 billion investment in OpenAI and up to $10 billion in Anthropic, according to the note. These investments are "easily manageable," due to Nvidia's ability to generate up to $470 billion of free cash flow over the next two years. "In other words, we see no issue in (Nvidia) returning 50% of (free cash flow) to shareholders," Arya wrote.BofA maintained its buy rating on the Nvidia stock with a $350 price objective while naming it the "top sector pick on compelling valuation."The company's shares were down 3.1% in Monday afternoon trade. So far in 2026, the stock has jumped nearly 18%.Nvidia is scheduled to release its latest financial results Aug. 26.Price: $217.76, Change: $-6.20, Percent Change: -2.77%

Sector Update: Tech Stocks Gain Late Afternoon

Tech stocks were higher late Friday afternoon, with the State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) rising 1.2% and the State Street SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) climbing 4.2%.The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index added 2%.In corporate news, Microchip Technology's (MCHP) strong fiscal Q1 results were buoyed by better cyclical trends and structural tailwinds from its data center and aerospace and defense segments, Morgan Stanley said in a Friday note. Microchip shares jumped 13.3%.Cloudflare (NET) shares gained nearly 5% after the cloud and cybersecurity company lifted its full-year outlook following better-than-expected Q2 results.Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI is slowing down development of its new Astra model and is scaling up testing because it cannot "rule out critical cyber capabilities," Axios reported. Microsoft shares were up 0.3%.Trade Desk (TTD) shares fell more than 21% following stock rating downgrades from multiple brokerages, including Citigroup. Trade Desk released disappointing Q2 results late Thursday.

$MCHP$MSFT$NET$TTD

Sectors40d ago

Sector Update: Tech

Tech stocks were higher late Friday afternoon, with the State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) rising 1.3% and the State Street SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) climbing 4.6%.The Philadelphia Semiconductor index added 2.4%.In corporate news, Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI is slowing down development of its new Astra model and is scaling up testing because it cannot "rule out critical cyber capabilities," Axios reported. Microsoft shares were up 0.3%.

Update: Market Chatter: OpenAI Slows Release of Astra Model Over Cyber Concerns

(Update with OpenAI's statement in the last paragraph.)Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI is slowing down development of its new Astra model and is scaling up testing because it cannot "rule out critical cyber capabilities," Axios reported Friday, citing the company.The timing of the release is unclear, but the pause in its development could cause any future release to be delayed, the report said."Our latest internal evaluations of Astra, one of our upcoming models, over the past few days indicate significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity," OpenAI said in a post. "These results, in addition to expert assessments, have led us to conclude last night that we cannot rule out critical cyber capabilities under our Preparedness Framework."(Market Chatter news is derived from conversations with market professionals globally. This information is believed to be from reliable sources but may include rumor and speculation. Accuracy is not guaranteed.)Price: $500.68, Change: $+0.82, Percent Change: +0.16%

Market Chatter: OpenAI Slows Release of Astra Model Over Cyber Concerns

Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI is slowing down development of its new Astra model and is scaling up testing because it cannot "rule out critical cyber capabilities," Axios reported Friday, citing the company.The timing of the release is unclear, but the pause in its development could cause any future release to be delayed, the report said.OpenAI didn't immediately reply to a request for comment from.(Market Chatter news is derived from conversations with market professionals globally. This information is believed to be from reliable sources but may include rumor and speculation. Accuracy is not guaranteed.)Price: $502.66, Change: $+2.80, Percent Change: +0.56%

OpenAI Slows Release of Astra Model Over Cyber Concerns, Axios Reports