NEW YORK, July 5, 2026, 15:02 (EDT)
- No trading for U.S. stocks on Friday as both Nasdaq and NYSE were closed for the Independence Day observed holiday on July 3, 2026. Today is Sunday in New York.
- Microsoft Corporation NASDAQ:MSFT ended the regular session at $390.49, with the stock quoted at $390.80 after hours. Shares gained 4.70% over the past five days but are down 19.26% for the year.
- Microsoft is putting $2.5 billion into its new Frontier Company, a figure dwarfed by the $31.9 billion it spent on capex last quarter. The big difference has investors focused on how AI spending pays off for the stock.
Microsoft Corporation NASDAQ:MSFT heads into this week with a more direct question than other AI names—if its customer AI tools can finally start to pay off the big money still hitting GPUs, CPUs and data centers.
U.S. stock markets stayed closed Friday for the Independence Day holiday, so Thursday’s close remained the last available price for the stock. Nasdaq’s normal trading is from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern, and the exchange says July 3, 2026, will also be a holiday.
Microsoft finished at $390.49 in regular trading and then moved to $390.80 after hours, MarketWatch said. The stock rose 1.62% for the day and gained 4.70% this week. But it’s down 6.28% over the past month, off 19.26% so far this year, and lower by 21.72% for the last 12 months. Shares are still 11.8% above the 52-week low of $349.20 but sit 29.7% under the 52-week high of $555.45.
| Microsoft tape | Latest value |
|---|---|
| Shares ended at | $390.49 |
| After-hours move | $390.80 |
| Past five sessions | +4.70% |
| Change in a month | -6.28% |
| Since start of year | -19.26% |
| 52-week low/high | $349.20-$555.45 |
| Turnover | 42.19 million, 107% of 65-day average |
Last week’s $2.5 billion Frontier Company launch wasn’t really about the size. Microsoft said it’s sending 6,000 experts from industry and engineering into customer organizations to help build AI systems aimed at what it calls “measurable business outcomes.” The Official Microsoft Blog
Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft Commercial Business, told Reuters the company learned a lesson from how it first built Copilot. “We made a mistake by binding it to OpenAI models only,” he said. According to Reuters, the new unit is supposed to help customers use Microsoft and third-party AI models, and customers will keep ownership of their AI results. Reuters
Patrick Moorhead, CEO at Moor Insights & Strategy, told Reuters that big firms worry models from OpenAI and Anthropic could one day let frontier labs rival them, particularly in coding and law. For investors, Microsoft’s push for model diversity is about keeping enterprise trust as much as chasing new sales.
Sorting out the cash is tricky. Microsoft reported third-quarter capex at $31.9 billion, saying about two-thirds went to short-term assets like GPUs and CPUs. Free cash flow came in at $15.8 billion. Microsoft also handed back $10.2 billion to shareholders via dividends and buybacks. Looking ahead, it expects calendar 2026 capex to land around $190 billion.
| AI cash item | Amount | Investor read-through |
|---|---|---|
| Frontier Company investment | $2.5 billion | 7.8% of Q3 capex |
| Q3 capital expenditures | $31.9 billion | double Q3 free cash flow |
| Q3 free cash flow | $15.8 billion | capex hit cash flow |
| Q3 shareholder returns | $10.2 billion | 64.6% of free cash flow |
| Calendar 2026 capex plan | about $190 billion | stock needs to handle this size |
Microsoft’s revenue keeps climbing. Fiscal Q3 revenue was up 18% at $82.9 billion, operating income gained 20% to $38.4 billion, and Azure and other cloud services jumped 40%. CEO Satya Nadella said AI business annual revenue run rate hit $37 billion, up 123% on the year.
The issue is whether that revenue will hold up margins and cash. CFO Amy Hood told the April earnings call gross margin came in at 68%, a drop from last year as spending on AI infrastructure and higher AI product use cut into results. She said Microsoft Cloud gross margin should land near 64% in the fourth quarter, also dipping compared to last year.
AI capex is still driving the market. Brad Bernstein at UBS Private Wealth Management told Reuters tech firms’ big AI budgets are fueling “unprecedented” earnings for a wide range of companies. Last week, Reuters also said five firms including Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. NASDAQ:GOOGL and Amazon.com Inc. NASDAQ:AMZN expect to spend roughly $730 billion on capex this year, citing JPMorgan. Reuters
Microsoft’s next week is shaped less by the daily stock move and more by how Wall Street takes in the company’s latest message about Frontier. Dow Jones futures were set to open Sunday evening after the long weekend. Investor’s Business Daily reported markets booked decent weekly gains, though the Nasdaq lost ground under key moving averages as AI and chip shares fell.
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