Key points
- About $25B of Microsoft's (MSFT) $190B calendar 2026 capital budget is higher component prices, not extra capacity. Components there are largely memory.
- Microsoft and Meta (META) report Wednesday after the close, about two hours after the Fed decides at 2 p.m. ET.
- Alphabet (GOOGL) beat on revenue and cloud last week, raised 2026 spending to $195B-$205B, and fell as much as 5% after hours.
- Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) follow Thursday. Micron (MU) and SK Hynix set the memory prices sitting inside all four budgets.
When Microsoft (MSFT) told investors in April it would spend about $190 billion on capital projects this calendar year, around $25 billion of that increase bought nothing new. It was the same buildout at a higher price, because component costs had gone up. Those components are largely memory chips.
Microsoft reports Wednesday after the close. That $25 billion line is the number I'll look for first.
The memory bill lands inside Big Tech's budget
Micron (MU) fell hard Monday, along with SK Hynix's US listing, after ChangXin Memory's Shanghai debut raised questions about who supplies memory in 2027. Most coverage of that treats it as a chip story. It is also a cost story for the companies buying those chips by the container.
Memory pricing now sits inside Microsoft's own guidance as an input cost it doesn't control. The same is true at Alphabet (GOOGL), Meta (META) and Amazon (AMZN), all of which are buying the same parts for the same reason. What Microsoft says Wednesday about that component line is a read on the memory market, and it arrives before any of the memory makers report again.
Alphabet already ran this experiment
Alphabet reported second-quarter revenue up 24% to $119.8 billion. Google Cloud grew 82% to $24.8 billion, an acceleration from 63% the quarter before and ahead of what analysts had modeled.
Then the call started. Alphabet raised its 2026 capital spending guidance to $195 billion to $205 billion, up from $180 billion to $190 billion three months earlier, the third increase this year. Chief financial officer Anat Ashkenazi told analysts demand still runs ahead of the capacity being added. She flagged another significant increase for 2027. GOOGL dropped as much as 5% in extended trading. We wrote that up the same night.
Capital spending, or capex, is the money a company puts into physical assets it will use for years. The cash goes out now and the revenue it supports doesn't show up for a while. For these companies it covers data centers, land, power and the chips inside.
My read: Microsoft gets judged differently
Alphabet's raise was a decision. It saw demand running ahead of capacity, lifted the 2026 range for the third time this year, and told investors 2027 goes higher again. GOOGL fell as much as 5% that evening.
Microsoft is carrying a different kind of increase. Its April guidance came in some $35 billion above what analysts had modeled, and about $25 billion of that gap was priced by suppliers. I expect a lighter penalty for the part Microsoft didn't choose, and I think MSFT holds up better Wednesday night than GOOGL did on July 22.
A component line above $25 billion would change that. Memory running ahead of April's budget reaches Alphabet, Meta and Amazon on the same schedule, because all four buy the same parts from the same three suppliers. Micron was down more than 4% at midday Monday and SK Hynix's US listing close to 9%, so some of that is already being priced two days early.
The rest of the week
| Day | Before the open | After the close |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, July 28 | Boeing (BA), Coca-Cola (KO), PayPal (PYPL) | Visa (V), KLA (KLAC), Ford (F), Enphase (ENPH) |
| Wednesday, July 29 | Fed decision 2 p.m. ET | Microsoft (MSFT), Meta (META), Qualcomm (QCOM), Arm (ARM), Lam Research (LRCX), Robinhood (HOOD) |
| Thursday, July 30 | Mastercard (MA) | Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Coinbase (COIN), First Solar (FSLR) |
| Friday, July 31 | Exxon (XOM), Chevron (CVX) |
Analysts are looking for $4.23 a share from Microsoft and $7.18 from Meta, with Apple at $1.89 and Amazon at $1.82 on Thursday. SK Hynix reports in Seoul in the middle of it, and we have covered those forecasts separately.
The Fed lands first. Traders had the odds of an increase at 38% as of July 24, against 10.7% nine days earlier, and we went through how those odds moved. Chair Kevin Warsh takes questions at 2:30, about ninety minutes before Microsoft and Meta file.
Three things that decide it
- Microsoft's component-cost line. Above $25 billion and the memory bill is outrunning what was budgeted in April.
- Meta, the same evening. A raised capital spending range there turns this into a sector story.
- Warsh at 2:30. A September signal moves the discount rate under all four of these companies.
Alphabet was up about 2.4% at midday Monday, a week on from its drop. The next dated marker is 4:05 p.m. Wednesday.
Sources
- Microsoft calendar 2026 capital spending guidance of about $190 billion, including about $25 billion tied to higher component pricing: CNBC, April 29, 2026
- Earnings dates, times and analyst per-share estimates via Robinhood market data, verified July 27, 2026
- Alphabet second-quarter revenue, Google Cloud growth and the raised 2026 capital spending range, as reported in our July 22 coverage and the accompanying results piece
- Fed meeting timing and rate-increase odds: our July 29 FOMC preview, citing CME Group FedWatch
- Micron and SK Hynix price moves and the CXMT listing: our July 27 coverage, with intraday prices via Robinhood market data
This article is for information only and is not investment advice. Markets can go down as well as up, and you can lose money. Always do your own research and consider speaking with a licensed financial professional before making any investment decision.
