PremiumQuestion: "If The Cleanest Hyperscaler Needs $25 Billion In Bonds, Who Doesn't?"
Twelve hours.
That is how long our closing line from last night's Microsoft earnings post survived. "Microsoft, for one more quarter at least, didn't need the debt," we wrote. At 7:46am ET this morning, Bloomberg flashed that Microsoft was kicking off a 10-part dollar high-grade bond offering, its first since 2017, and six minutes later that it is looking to raise at least $25 billion:
| The call | What happened | Grade |
|---|---|---|
| Fed: hawkish hold, possibly three dissents | Hold at 3.75-4.00%, two hawkish dissents (Cook, Hammack); Logan stayed put | B |
| GS vol desk: S&P has closed lower on every FOMC day this year | S&P +0.28% to 7,744. Streak over | Miss (theirs, not ours) |
| Both hyperscalers clear the cloud bar | Azure +48% cc vs ~47% buyside; Google Cloud +103% vs "mid 90s" desk bogey | A |
| Privorotsky: Azure "probably needs a guidance raise" | Q2 Azure guided 49-50% cc vs ~45% Street | A |
| Positioning skew "probably favors Alphabet tonight" | GOOGL -10.8% premarket, heading for its worst post-earnings drop ever | F |
| Both say "higher" about next year's spend | MSFT: >$50bn in Q2, ~$170bn for the calendar year; GOOGL: 2027 capex up "significantly" | A- |
| How they pay for it: "more expensively than before" | MSFT launches $25bn+ bond deal 12 hours later | A+ |