The Nasdaq Composite enters its biggest earnings week of the quarter at 25,955.34, down 0.7% over the past five sessions, with the Federal Reserve and two of the largest AI hyperscalers compressed into a single Wednesday afternoon.
The index slipped 0.21% on Friday after Thursday’s 2.6% rout, while the S&P 500 finished at 7,623.68 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 52,215.16. The weekly loss leaves the Nasdaq trying to stabilize after investors spent much of October repricing the cost of debt-funded artificial intelligence infrastructure.
That backdrop makes next week’s earnings unusually important. More than one-third of S&P 500 companies are due to report, while third-quarter earnings for companies that have already reported or are represented in analyst estimates are on pace to rise more than 32% year over year, according to LSEG IBES.
For technology investors, however, the issue is no longer whether earnings are growing. It is whether Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon can show that the enormous capital expenditure behind AI is producing enough cloud growth, backlog conversion and future cash flow to justify valuations being squeezed by higher borrowing costs.
Nasdaq Ends the Week at 25,955 After Thursday’s 2.6% Drop
Friday was relatively calm compared with the previous session. The Nasdaq fell 53.52 points, or 0.21%, to 25,955.34 after losing 2.6% on Thursday.
FinanceFeeds detailed that selloff in Thursday’s Nasdaq market update, when the Composite closed at 26,008.86 as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 6.72%, Brent crude moved above $116 and the 10-year Treasury yield approached 5%.
The broader pattern has been visible for longer. A week earlier, the Nasdaq had already fallen about 4.5% as investors questioned AI infrastructure financing, semiconductor valuations and the return profile on increasingly expensive data-center projects.
Friday’s 25,955 close therefore leaves 26,000 as the immediate reference point. Above that sits Wednesday’s 26,702.86 close, the level from which Thursday’s selloff began. A recovery through that area would reverse much of the latest shock; failure to reclaim 26,000 would leave the index below both its pre-selloff level and the October 16 close of 26,140.03.
Wednesday: Fed at 2 PM, Then Microsoft and Alphabet
The Federal Reserve announces its October policy decision at 2:00 p.m. ET Wednesday, October 28, followed by its press conference at 2:30 p.m. Futures markets enter the weekend heavily tilted toward no change after September’s rate increase.
Then the focus moves almost immediately from monetary policy to AI economics.
Alphabet reports after the close, with its earnings call scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET. The Nasdaq consensus snapshot used by StockTitan puts expected earnings at $2.94 per share.
Microsoft follows with its fiscal first-quarter 2027 results and a 5:30 p.m. ET call. Consensus EPS is $4.71, with analysts expecting roughly $90.6 billion of revenue.
The timing means investors will have only a few hours to digest the Fed before getting two of the most important readouts on global AI spending.
Microsoft’s last guidance pointed to more than $50 billion of quarterly capital expenditure, while Azure remains one of the clearest tests of whether that spending converts into revenue. FinanceFeeds’ recent look at OpenAI bringing GPT-6 models to Google Cloud also showed why Wednesday is a competitive cloud test as well as an earnings event: Microsoft and Alphabet are increasingly competing for the same frontier-model workloads.
Thursday: Amazon, Intel, Sandisk and Coinbase After GDP and PCE
Thursday begins with another concentrated macro release. The advance estimate of third-quarter U.S. GDP and September Personal Income and Outlays, including the PCE inflation indexes, are both scheduled for 8:30 a.m. ET.
The earnings calendar then becomes crowded after the close.
Amazon reports October 29, with its conference call at 5:00 p.m. ET. The Nasdaq consensus used in the week’s earnings calendar is $2.01 per share, compared with $1.95 a year earlier.
Intel, Sandisk and Coinbase are also scheduled to report Thursday, giving investors simultaneous reads on processors, memory and crypto-market activity.
Meta is not part of that calendar cluster because it already reported on October 21.
AI Capex Is No Longer Enough – Investors Want the Return
The three hyperscaler reports arrive at a difficult point for the AI trade.
The fundamental earnings picture remains strong. LSEG’s more than 32% year-over-year growth estimate would normally provide substantial support for equities. But the market has started separating earnings growth from the financing required to produce future growth.
CoreWeave has become the clearest example of that change. FinanceFeeds reported that CoreWeave’s unsecured bonds were yielding around 15% as its stock sold off, putting the cost of financing the AI buildout directly in front of equity investors.
Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon do not share CoreWeave’s balance-sheet profile. They generate enormous operating cash flows and have much stronger access to capital. But the market question is migrating up the chain: how much capital must the hyperscalers continue spending, and how quickly does each additional dollar generate cloud revenue and free cash flow?
That makes capex guidance almost as important as EPS next week. Higher spending accompanied by accelerating Azure, Google Cloud or AWS growth could support the argument that the buildout remains economically productive. Higher spending without stronger monetization would reinforce the multiple compression already visible across AI-linked equities.
Nasdaq Levels and the Week’s Risk Calendar
The Nasdaq starts Monday at 25,955.34 after losing 0.7% for the week. The first upside reference is the 26,000 area, followed by Wednesday’s 26,702.86 pre-selloff close. The October 9 close at 27,366.17 remains a more distant reference for how much ground the index has lost during the recent AI repricing.
Tuesday and Wednesday bring the two-day FOMC meeting, with the decision at 2:00 p.m. ET Wednesday. Alphabet and Microsoft then report after the close.
Thursday brings GDP and PCE at 8:30 a.m., followed after the bell by Amazon, Intel, Sandisk and Coinbase.
The earnings side of that calendar is the key test for technology valuations. After a month in which investors have increasingly questioned AI debt, infrastructure spending and the cost of capital, next week’s three hyperscaler reports can show whether the earnings underneath the AI trade are still growing fast enough to absorb the higher price of funding it.
