Microsoft Surges 15.5%, Biggest Single-Day Gain Ever
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- Microsoft stock jumped 15.5% to close at $451.10, marking the largest single-day market-value increase in stock market history after the company's Q4 earnings beat expectations
- Microsoft posted EPS of $4.74 on $90 billion in revenue, topping analyst estimates of $4.25 EPS and $87.7 billion revenue, and up from $3.65 EPS and $76.4 billion in the year-ago quarter
- Azure growth accelerated to 43% in the quarter with Microsoft guiding to 45% in the current period; Azure revenue also crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time
- Microsoft 365 Copilot seats rose above 30 million, with the article noting investors had questioned when Microsoft's AI investments would generate returns
- Microsoft spent $41 billion on capital expenditures including leases, coming in below the anticipated $42 billion
- All three reporting segments beat expectations: Intelligent Cloud hit $39.3 billion (vs. $38.1B), Business Productivity and Business Processes reached $37.8 billion (vs. $37.3B), and More Personal Computing posted $12.9 billion (vs. $12.1B)
- Remaining performance obligations — contracts Microsoft must still deliver on — hit $678 billion versus the $647.6 billion analysts expected
Why it matters: Microsoft's record-setting rally rewarded investors who held through a year of AI-spending skepticism that had made MSFT a laggard. Azure reaccelerating to 43% with 45% forward guidance, Copilot crossing 30 million seats, and a $678 billion backlog that beat estimates by $30 billion gave concrete answers to the ROI question that had weighed on the stock all year.
