Plan Your Trade

Last wk, earnings had elements of all the AI issues I feared in my preview. $GOOGL – AI disintermediation fear for search and big FCF miss. $MSFT – neocloud partner pushing out capacity and 1st new fundraising bonds since 2017. $AMZN – AI growth miss in AWS and FCF miss. Tech took a beating last week with Nasdaq -2.0% and Mag7 -2.4% but with S&P down only 0.6%. However, the nine non-tech related sub sectors (out of the eleven total) were strong and up 1.0-3.1%. As a result, the equal weighted S&P was up 0.8%. The above three names all declined last week with Google down 12.6%, Amazon -3.1% and Microsoft -0.5%. The historic 28.6% stock decline by $INTC on Friday (-24.4% for the week) did not help. This helped drive the SOX Index down 7.2% on Friday though the weekly decline was only 0.8%. With all the hyperscalers now having reported, here are my current thoughts: 1) Microsoft has committed to staying FCF positive (with $18.6B in FCF in CQ3) and is the only name in this list that has committed to do so. M365 is likely to become the default option for enterprises that want AI in a safe environment through use of Co-Pilot. 2) Meta is using AI to improve the efficiency of their business as seen in their ad revenues compared to Google. Also Muse has been a hit with consumers for Agentic AI while they are appealing to enterprises with their strong open-weight models. An 18x CY27 PE for 28% revenue growth is appealing. Their major blemish is the future negative FCF expected with a $2.1B burn in Q3 driving them to raise ~$95B in equity financing following earnings results. S&P Global Ratings on cash flow concerns and AI spending revised their credit rating today from AA- stable to AA- negative. 3) Amazon despite missing buyside AWS expectations of ~42% y/y growth with 39% reported (official sellside consensus of 38%) expects 40% revenue growth for AWS in CY27 and CY28 despite being the largest public cloud vendor. Also their LTM FCF burn of $42.4B in Q3 vs $7.6B in June helped lead to a $80B supplier financing arrangement facility post-earnings. Also physical AI should benefit their e-commerce business. Both e-commerce and AWS were guided to be $1 trillion revenue businesses within the next 5-10 years. 4) Google’s new LLM model is back at the frontier with a low cost per token. However this miss in search revenues for the 2nd quarter in a row and first miss in both total revenues and EPS for the first time since late 2022 raises AI disintermediation fears. FCF burn of $9.1B was also more than expectations. But total search queries are at the highest levels in five years. As a result, as ad coverage and loads increase on their AI queries, these fears should pass much like in late 2025. Ultimately, I believe Google will be a winner in consumer AI through their distribution through Android phones. As for Intel, I did not see this coming. On October 20th, $SMCI (purely enterprise related revenues) pre-announced 27% revenue upside along with a raise to gross margins guidance to 12-12.5% from 10.4%-10.8% for their CQ3. I am not a fan of SuperMicro to be clear. For the processor vendors, I thought upside in server revenues due to Agentic AI would offset the downside in their PC business due to memory related price increases lowering demand. $AMD, which is gaining share, reports earnings on Tuesday. This will help investors understand whether this is an Intel specific issue or industry issue. I would note that Microsoft’s guidance for their Windows OEM & Devices business was down ~35% y/y for December vs -22% in September and -7% in June. Longer-term, I believe Intel will become a force in the foundry industry but in the near-term it may take some time for the valuation to reset lower due to their current microprocessor business. Looking forward, $AAPL reports on Monday after the close. The stock has been a beneficiary of investors looking to avoid AI companies with huge FCF burns. However, I would be wary into earnings that are likely to provide lower than expected guidance for the December quarter from a combination of higher currency impact, margin compression from semiconductor price increases, iPhone unit pressure from higher ASPs, a slowdown in services revenues and less than expected high margin TAC revenue from Google. Ultimately, I believe Apple will be a winner in consumer AI through their distribution through iPhones. I also believe their new foldable phone will drive a large upgrade cycle in 2027. But in the near-term I believe it is prudent to remove Apple (up 27% ytd) from my Top5 Picks that I put out when 2026 started. As a reminder this is meant to be a buy and hold list for the entire year for those that do not have time to be managing things daily which is what I do. I believe Apple is likely to be a Top 5 Pick at the start of 2027. We are now entering the seasonally strongest month of the year. Since 1957, which is the inception of the modern day S&P500, November is up +1.8% and tied for the best hit rate with April & December at up 71% of the time. This compares to an average return of 0.7% and hit rate of 61% for all months. Surprisingly, the returns for November in mid-term election years is even better with an average of 2.6% and hit rate of 82%. This might have to do with the ytd annual return being lower going into the elections at -1.8% through October with a hit rate of 53% so there is a relief rally on the other side. In summary, this earnings season has been more trick than treat for technology investors. Being more discerning and trading around positions has been the correct tactic. I think will continue to be the case. Let us hope November gives us something to be thankful for. All the best in the week ahead.