Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (-0.7%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%), and DJIA (-1.6%) are back in negative territory across the board after the immediate reaction to the FOMC decision sent the major averages to a mostly higher standing.

With Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's press conference concluding, attention begins to shift to an important slate of mega-cap earnings after the close.

Microsoft (MSFT 395.86, +2.51, +0.64%) heads into its Q4 (Jun) after-close report with a constructive setup after a string of beats and management's increasingly confident tone around AI demand, monetization, and long-term growth. The stock has rebounded modestly into the print, but the bar still looks tied less to the quarter itself and more to whether Azure growth, Copilot traction, and margin discipline can support another step-up in spending. Investors will want proof that heavy AI CapEx is still translating into durable revenue growth without a sharper hit to cloud profitability.

Meanwhile, Meta Platforms (META 589.55, -3.86, -0.65%) reports with the stock under pressure, down about 11% since July 10 and trading below both its 50-day and 200-day averages as investors reassess the economics of the AI buildout across hyperscalers. That backdrop raises the bar for this print: META likely needs to show that strong ad demand and AI-driven monetization gains are still offsetting heavier infrastructure spending, while keeping confidence intact around the return profile of its compute investments.