NEW YORK, June 29, 2026, 05:01 (EDT)
- Microsoft shares last quoted up 5.7% at $372.97, putting about $149 billion back on its market cap.
- Nasdaq traded in premarket ahead of the open; regular session begins at 9:30 a.m. EDT.
- The key for the stock is whether AI spending pays off in cash returns. In Q3, capex ran about double free cash flow.
Microsoft Corporation NASDAQ:MSFT starts the U.S. premarket session Monday with a setup that’s more straightforward than it was late last week. But holders are staring at the same issue: does the stock deserve its software valuation when the company is spending like an infrastructure player? Nasdaq lists premarket hours as 4:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Eastern, and regular hours at 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The exchange also marks July 3 as closed for the Independence Day observed holiday.
Microsoft’s latest quote put the stock at $372.97, up $20.04 from its last close. With a $2.777 trillion market cap in the same quote, that gain added roughly $149 billion in market value. That figure is about 9.4 times Microsoft’s $15.8 billion in free cash flow for its fiscal third quarter and about 4.7 times its $31.9 billion capital spend for the period.
| Company | Google Finance ticker | Latest price | Latest change | Market value | P/E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Corporation | NASDAQ:MSFT | $372.97 | up 5.68% | $2.78 trln | 22.2 |
| Apple Inc. | NASDAQ:AAPL | $283.78 | up 2.50% | $4.18 trln | 34.4 |
| NVIDIA Corp. | NASDAQ:NVDA | $192.53 | down 1.96% | $4.70 trln | 29.3 |
| Alphabet Inc. | NASDAQ:GOOGL | $337.39 | down 2.00% | $4.09 trln | 25.7 |
| Amazon.com Inc. | NASDAQ:AMZN | $232.69 | up 1.93% | $2.53 trln | 27.8 |
The table lays out the gap. Microsoft was the lowest by P/E, but even with that, it lagged Nvidia, Apple and Alphabet by over $1 trillion in market cap. Only Amazon was behind it out of the five, even after Microsoft bounced. Quote times for all five names were between 08:45 and 08:46 UTC.
Stocks found support from broader gains. S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) futures rose 0.7% and Nasdaq futures climbed 1% on Monday, Reuters said, after the U.S. and Iran said they would stop attacks and restart talks. Brent crude traded around $72.20 a barrel, off 22% for the month.
Losses from last week lingered. The Nasdaq Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) dropped 4.6% for the week, closing at 25,297.62 on Friday. The S&P 500 shed 2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) managed to gain 0.6% over the week.
Microsoft delivered numbers that gave bulls something to dig into. In its fiscal Q3, Microsoft Cloud revenue climbed 29% to $54.5 billion, and revenue from Azure and other cloud services jumped 40%. Commercial remaining performance obligation surged 99% to $627 billion. CEO Satya Nadella said, “Our AI business surpassed an annual revenue run rate of $37 billion.” CFO Amy Hood said results “exceeded expectations across revenue, operating income, and earnings per share.” Microsoft
| Microsoft Q3 metric | Figure | Why it matters to the stock |
|---|---|---|
| AI annual revenue run rate | $37 bln, +123% y/y | Main stat backing the AI story |
| Microsoft Cloud revenue | $54.5 bln, +29% | Shows steady cloud demand |
| Azure and other cloud services | +40% | Growth stays solid here |
| Commercial RPO | $627 bln, +99% | Big order book for future sales |
| Capital expenditures | $31.9 bln | This is the main red flag for investors |
| Free cash flow | $15.8 bln | Capex landed at roughly double FCF |
The table shows why the stock trades at low multiples but doesn’t get a lift. Hood told analysts the gross margin percentage dropped from last year due to spending on AI infrastructure and higher AI product usage. She said about two thirds of Q3 capex was for short-lived items, mostly GPUs and CPUs.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives said the market is in an “air pocket stage,” with investors less patient for big AI spending from hyperscalers to turn into revenue. He said Microsoft and Meta Platforms Inc. NASDAQ:META are getting treated like “bear market names that cannot be owned.” Benzinga
Bears are focusing on margin. Stifel’s Brad Reback trimmed his Microsoft target to $400, GuruFocus reported, calling for a fiscal 2027 gross margin near 63%. That’s under the consensus of 66.5%. Reback said higher AI data center depreciation and capex are at play.
Satya Nadella is pressing the case for more AI models, telling Business Insider that “there should be as many models in the world as firms in the world,” and saying businesses “can’t outsource your learning.” For Microsoft, that means a bigger opportunity for Azure AI Foundry and Copilot if companies build their own, but also steady capex. Business Insider
Microsoft traded 32.9% under its $555.45 record high and 6.8% above its 52-week low of $349.20, according to TradingView data. Microsoft made up 4.52% of Invesco QQQ Trust NASDAQ:QQQ, 5.13% of Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:VOO), 4.14% of SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY), and 9.87% of Vanguard Information Technology ETF (NYSEARCA:VGT).
