Big Tech lost nearly $900 billion in market value last week after another jump in AI spending. Alphabet fell 13% after reporting negative free cash flow of $9.1 billion in the third quarter, while Meta spent $34.9 billion on capex against $32.8 billion of operating cash flow. Scale Venture Partners' Rory O’Driscoll expects depreciation from roughly $500 billion of spending this year to start hitting earnings in 2027. Meta is already feeling it: its depreciation rose 44% in the third quarter, and its operating margin before a $9.89 billion legal charge fell about 5 points from a year earlier. Microsoft and Alphabet can offset this with cloud growth, such as Google Cloud revenue jumping 103%, but Meta has no cloud business to rent out its new capacity.
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Related tickers and likely impact
GOOGL
▼ Likely negativeAlphabet Inc. (Class A)
Relevance: low
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Communication Services |
| Industry | Interactive Media & Services |
| Market cap | $3.5T |
| Close on 11/02/2026 | 278.99 |
| Change that session | -0.30% |
META
▼ Likely negativeMeta Platforms
Relevance: low
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Communication Services |
| Industry | Interactive Media & Services |
| Market cap | $1.6T |
| Close on 11/02/2026 | 606.73 |
| Change that session | -1.34% |
MSFT
▼ Likely negativeMicrosoft
Relevance: low
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Information Technology |
| Industry | Systems Software |
| Market cap | $3.9T |
| Close on 11/02/2026 | 507.12 |
| Change that session | -2.83% |
Impact is scored by AI from the headline and may be wrong. It is not investment advice.
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