Alphabet reports Oct. 28 after its July beat still sent the stock down 7%

GOOGL reports third-quarter results after the close on Wednesday, Oct. 28, the same evening as MSFT, with AMZN following on Thursday. Consensus sits near $3.03 per share on SentiSense's earnings calendar, and one tally puts revenue consensus at $127.92 billion against $102.35 billion a year earlier. The three companies make up about 15% of the S&P 500, and each has moved around 10% or more the day after at least one report this year.

July is the reference point. Alphabet's EPS of $9.11 beat the $2.88 estimate by more than three times, revenue rose 24.2% to $119.8 billion, and Google Cloud grew 82% to $24.8 billion, yet the stock fell 7.1% after the report. Capital spending of $44.9 billion in the quarter pushed free cash flow to negative $5.9 billion, and Alphabet raised its 2026 capex guidance to between $195 billion and $205 billion. Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan said investor worries center on Search growth and the lack of a formal consumer AI agent launch, while keeping the stock on Goldman's buy list.

The backdrop is busy. The Fed meets Oct. 27-28 with rates expected to stay at 3.75% to 4.00%, and its decision lands at 2 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, hours before Alphabet and Microsoft report. Alphabet shares closed at $320.21 on Friday, up 2.3% in 2026, the smallest gain of the three, while the S&P 500 is up about 12%.

The questions for the print are whether cloud growth holds near July's pace as spending climbs, whether capex guidance moves again, and whether the July pattern of a large beat met by a falling stock repeats.