The stock market delivered mixed results on Thursday, as both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ ended the session lower. Although NVIDIA (NVDA) posted strong earnings that surpassed expectations, its shares fell sharply, weighing heavily on tech stocks.
Overall, S&P 500 fell 0.5% to 6,908, while NASDAQ dropped 1.2% to 22,878.
Tweet of the Day
Good take on the NEW AI software: https://t.co/iqKqW4046U
— David Sharek (@GrowthStockGuy) February 26, 2026
Chart of the Day
Here is the ten-year chart of Microsoft (MSFT) as of February 5, 2026, when the stock was at $394.
Microsoft beat estimates and delivered a strong 28% profit growth on a 17% increase in revenues last quarter. Profits were expected to grow 23% so David Sharek, Founder of School of Hard Stocks, was happy with the beat. This was mainly driven by both Microsoft Cloud and Azure which posted 26% and 39% year-on-year growth, respectively.
Microsoft Cloud breached the $50 billion mark last quarter, supported by strong demand for AI-powered cloud services. On the other hand, Azure and related services, saw robust demand as enterprises expanded usage of compute and AI workloads.
Although Microsoft had a strong quarter, the stock moderately declined amid concerns on heavy AI capital spending as well as Azure’s strong (+39% sales growth) but lower-than-expected performance. However, management said they could have done more Azure business if they needed to, but instead took some Azure chips and put them into its core business.
MSFT is part of the Conservative Growth Portfolio and Growth Portfolio. Software stocks have been weak lately. MSFT is a bargain now.
