Yesterday, shares of Microsoft (MSFT) rose by more than 4.6% on an earnings report for the December quarter that showed the company slightly beating analyst estimates on earnings and training only slightly on revenue.
Today, investors and traders had second thoughts. The stock was down as much as 4.6% in morning trading (That’s down from the close yesterday and not from the after-hours price.) The stock ended the day down just 059% but that was enough to erase all the after-hours gains from the previous day.
So what caused the second thoughts?
A reconsideration of exactly how fast growth at Azure, the company’s key cloud computing offering, is slowing.
Azure and other cloud services posted revenue growth of 31%, or 38% in constant currency. That topped views for 37% growth in constant currency. But that was down from 42% growth in constant dollars from the previous quarter. Looking at nominal dollars, the growth rate pattern goes like this: 50% growth in the September 2021 quarter, 35% growth in the September 2022 quarter, and now 31% growth in the December quarter. Growth was 42% in the previous quarter.
And negative guidance for the quarter that ends in March, the fiscal third quarter for Microsoft. Microsoft predicted sales of $50.5 billion to $51.5 billion for the March quarter. The midpoint of $51 billion was well below Wall Street’s target of $52.4 billion for the March quarter. In the same quarter last year, Microsoft generated sales of $49.4 billion. The company also forecast continued deceleration of Azure sales growth to a 30% rate in the March quarter.
Finally, as if investors needed a reminder, the company reported that PC revenue continued weak on declining PC sales, a trend not unique to Microsoft but seen across the sector. Revenue at the company’s More Personal Computing unit, which includes Windows software, Xbox video games, Surface computers, Internet search (Yes, Bing lives), and Internet advertising, fell 19% to $14.2 billion. Windows licensing revenue collapsed 39% in the holiday sales quarter.
Microsoft’s results and guidance rippled across the market today. Tech stocks were weaker on worries that the PC growth slowdown would hit other companies. And Microsoft’s warning that customers were reducing their spending due to a difficult economy certainly applies to all tech companies and beyond.
For the day, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was off just 0.02% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 003%. The NASDAQ Composite dropped 0.18% and the NASDAQ 100 lost 0.25%. The small-cap Russell 2000 was up 0.25%
