No Hangover: Revisiting Microsoft One Week After Earnings

Key Points

• Microsoft shares surged more than 25% after its July 29 earnings report, driven by 18% revenue growth and 43% Azure growth that eased AI monetization concerns.
• Long-term power agreements with Chevron and Constellation Energy suggest that demand for Microsoft's AI data center buildout is real, diversified, and multi-year in nature.
• Microsoft's free cash flow fell 23% year over year amid rising capital expenditures, raising valuation concerns even as the company maintains positive cash flow.

Microsoft Corporation NASDAQ: MSFT reported earnings on July 29, and the stock has been on a tear ever since. The share price is up over 25% since the report and turned positive for the year on Aug. 5.

The rally is a relief to shareholders who had watched MSFT drop nearly 30% between October 2025 and March 2026. The company seemed to be at the center of every headwind affecting technology stocks.

• Concern over sustained hyperscaler spending? Check.

• Concern over too much hyperscaler spending? Check.

• Concern over the SaaS-pocalypse created by AI? Check.

• Concern over monetizing AI? Check, check, and check.

The company’s Q4 2026 earnings report checked all the boxes that were concerning investors and is changing the conversation around AI. But with the stock posting such strong growth in the week after earnings, some investors are questioning if the stock is due for a pullback.

Microsoft's Earnings Reignite the AI Growth Story

The numbers behind the rally help explain why. Microsoft posted fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $90 billion, up 18% year over year, with Azure revenue climbing 43%. Full fiscal 2026 revenue topped $331 billion.

Microsoft 365 Copilot crossed 30 million paid seats, and the company's commercial remaining performance obligation, essentially its contracted backlog, grew sharply.

That combination gave investors something they hadn't had in months: proof that the AI spending is translating into revenue.

Is MSFT Stock Moving Too Far, Too Fast?

The cautious argument is that MSFT doesn’t make parabolic moves like this. The stock has made moves of 25% or more in the last five years, but it’s usually a process that happens over a month or longer. The strength of this move in such a short time is an outlier.

The rebuttal would be that the depth and duration of the stock’s pullback were atypical. Many analysts would also have said it wasn’t merited. There’s also the technical fact that, based on the relative strength indicator (RSI), MSFT isn’t overbought yet.

Still, believing this time is different is rarely a good way to build an investing strategy. MSFT may be due for a pullback. But the long-term outlook remains strong, which is why investors should welcome and be ready to buy any pronounced dip in MSFT.

Microsoft Is Locking in the AI Infrastructure Buildout

In addition to its own strong earnings report, Microsoft is getting a halo effect from other reports. For example, Chevron NYSE: CVX reported earnings on July 31. A highlight of the report was Project Kilby, a 20-year, take-or-pay power agreement with Microsoft covering 2.67 gigawatts of behind-the-meter capacity in West Texas.

Chevron said the project is moving toward a final investment decision later this year and expects mid-teens returns on the investment. CEO Mike Wirth framed the broader quarter as one built on consistent strategy and capital discipline, and Chevron's New Energies president, Jeff Gustavson, noted that few competing data center power projects have locked in long-term customer commitments as Kilby has.

Chevron isn’t speculatively building power capacity and hoping a hyperscaler shows up later. Microsoft is already the counterparty on a two-decade contract, which is about as far from speculative as an energy deal gets.

Chevron isn't alone in this. Constellation Energy NASDAQ: CEG has its own long-term power arrangement tied to Microsoft. The deal is anchored by the restart of the Crane Clean Energy Center, which is under a 20-year agreement to supply Microsoft's data centers once it returns to service.

Between Chevron's gas-fired capacity and Constellation's nuclear restart, Microsoft is locking down power from two very different corners of the energy sector, a sign that the demand behind its AI buildout is broad enough to require diversified supply rather than a single bet.

Strong AI Spending Comes With a Free Cash Flow Trade-Off

Microsoft delivered $19.6 billion in free cash flow (FCF) in its latest quarter. That was down 23% year over year (YOY). It also repeats a pattern that was in place in the third quarter.

The good news is that Microsoft continues to maintain positive FCF. That's the concern (perhaps overstated) with a company like Oracle NYSE: ORCL that is taking on debt to support its AI infrastructure spending, and companies like Alphabet NASDAQ: GOOGL that reported negative FCF.

The bad news is that it makes MSFT expensive based on some discount cash flow (DCF) models that prioritize FCF. That's the opposite of what was fueling the stock’s rally in 2025.

What Will Drive Microsoft Stock From Here?

Microsoft's own guidance adds another layer to the debate. Management now expects roughly $175 billion in fiscal 2027 capital expenditures, and it's changing how it accounts for some of that spending.

Data centers and office buildings will now be depreciated over 25 years instead of 15, and more future leases will be booked as operating leases rather than finance leases. That's an accounting shift, but it will affect how the FCF picture looks going forward, and it's worth watching whether analysts treat it as a genuine improvement or a way to flatter the numbers.

For investors, the setup is straightforward, even if the stock's next move isn't. The Chevron and Constellation deals suggest the demand side of the AI story is real and multi-year in nature. The FCF trend suggests the cost side is real, too, and it isn't going away next quarter.

Both things can be true at once and probably are. Balancing those truths, rather than any single number, is likely to define how MSFT trades over the next two quarters.

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