Why Microsoft's stock just lost a big fan in the wake of Alphabet's earnings

By Hannah Pedone

While Google's cloud growth blew Wall Street away, a Stifel analyst worries it will be difficult for Microsoft Azure to accelerate growth in the near future

Microsoft's stock price has dropped 23.5% over the last six months.

Google parent Alphabet's strong cloud growth has one analyst feeling less excited about the prospects for Microsoft's stock.

After Alphabet (GOOGL) (GOOG) posted earnings on Wednesday, Brad Reback, an analyst at Stifel, downgraded Microsoft's stock (MSFT) to hold from buy. In his view, there are "no near-term catalysts" that could give shares a boost.

While Google's cloud growth accelerated to 48% in the fourth quarter, from 34% in the third, Microsoft's cloud growth slowed to 38% in the December quarter, from 39% in the September quarter, when accounting for currency adjustments.

Reback expects Microsoft's stock to stay "range-bound" until growth in Azure, the company's cloud-computing business, catches up to Microsoft's enormous capital-expenditure growth, which was 66% in the December quarter.

In other words, for now, Alphabet's stock may be a better bet.

See more: Alphabet's stock is the hottest in Big Tech, raising the bar for earnings

Microsoft's stock saw its steepest postearnings plunge in over a decade last week, furthering its underperformance. Microsoft's stock is off 23.5% over a six-month span, while Alphabet's stock is up 62.9% during that period.

Microsoft management has said that Azure growth has been limited because the company has a limited supply of AI chips, and has chosen to allocate some chips to internal developers instead of putting everything toward the cloud. This is a decision that executives say will pay off in the long term.

But in the short term, Reback is worried about Microsoft's prospects and doubts the company will be able to drive "meaningful near-term Azure acceleration."

He also suggested that Microsoft's tight relationship with OpenAI doesn't confer the advantages it once did, especially as the ChatGPT maker faces stiffer competition from Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude. Moreover, Microsoft's $250 billion commitment from OpenAI stands at roughly 45% of the company's remaining performance obligations, which has stoked investor fears.

Read: Buy Microsoft's stock while it's down? First ask yourself this question.

That said, while Reback believes Microsoft's near-term prospects are "cloudy," especially compared to Google's, he says its cloud business has promise down the line.

"Microsoft remains well positioned over the long term to navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape over the coming years," he wrote.

-Hannah Pedone

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02-05-26 1413ET