NEW YORK, December 30, 2025, 10:06 ET — Regular session
- Microsoft shares rose about 0.3% in morning trading after Monday’s tech-led pullback.
- Investors stayed cautious in holiday-thin conditions as big tech remained a key driver of index swings.
- Traders are watching Federal Reserve minutes this week and Microsoft’s late-January earnings for updates on cloud demand and AI spending.
Microsoft Corp shares inched higher on Tuesday, up about 0.3% at $488.58 in morning trade after opening near $486 and holding a narrow range.
The move matters because Microsoft remains a bellwether for U.S. megacap tech, where positioning shifts can swing the broader market in thin, year-end conditions. Small percentage moves in the biggest index weights often signal whether investors are adding risk or taking it off.
Traders have also been wary of the push-and-pull between cooling inflation and higher-for-longer interest rates, a backdrop that tends to hit richly valued growth stocks hardest. Microsoft’s next set of results will be a key checkpoint for whether cloud and AI demand can justify heavy investment spending.
Wall Street opened subdued after Monday’s slide, with the main U.S. indexes little changed at the bell as renewed selling pressure in technology stocks lingered. 1
On Monday, the tech sector weighed on markets as several AI-linked names fell, though some strategists said they viewed the pullback as more of a pause than a trend change. “This is (not) the beginning of the end of the tech dominance, it’ll turn out to be a buying opportunity,” said Hank Smith, director and head of investment strategy at Haverford Trust. 2
Microsoft has not released major new company updates in the past day, leaving the stock to trade largely with the broader technology complex and shifts in rates expectations.
That dynamic has been pronounced into year-end, when trading volumes typically thin out and investors trim or rebuild positions ahead of January. Those flows can amplify moves in large-cap names even in the absence of fresh headlines.
Investors have also stayed sensitive to the cost of Microsoft’s AI buildout, as large cloud providers spend heavily on data centers and chips to meet demand for AI tools. In its most recent quarterly update, Microsoft flagged record capital spending and signaled higher investment needs, keeping returns on that spending a key point of debate for 2026. 3
In cloud computing, Microsoft competes directly with Amazon.com’s AWS and Alphabet’s Google Cloud, making sector-wide shifts in enterprise tech budgets a common driver across the group. Nvidia remains a central supplier for AI computing, and its stock has often moved in tandem with hyperscalers when investors reassess the pace of AI infrastructure spending.
The next near-term test for sentiment is macro. Traders will scan this week’s Federal Reserve minutes and other data for hints on the path of interest rates, which can quickly reset valuations for large-cap growth stocks.
For Microsoft specifically, investors are looking ahead to its next earnings report, expected on Jan. 28, according to Yahoo Finance’s earnings calendar. 4
Until then, Microsoft’s shares are likely to remain tethered to moves in megacap tech and any renewed volatility around the AI trade, as markets navigate the final sessions of 2025 and reposition for the start of 2026.
