The latest Market Talks covering Equities. Published exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires throughout the day.
1858 ET - EBay says it's seeing a divergence in consumer health across the U.S. and internationally. In the U.S., consumer demand has been resilient despite volatility in trade policy and geopolitics, with broad-based strength across the company's categories including collectibles, motors and fashion in the latest quarter, CEO Jamie Iannone says during a call with analysts. "I would say it's a different story in Europe, where it's more challenging, as reflected in the consumer confidence and some of the macro data," Iannone says. However, the investments eBay has been making in the region have helped offset those trends, Iannone says. (kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)
2241 ET - Australian stocks are on course to extend their longest losing streak since 2022, with local futures pointing 0.8% lower ahead of Thursday's session. U.S. equities provided a soft lead as the DJIA and S&P 500 lost ground amid higher energy prices and rising bond yields. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 is coming off a 0.3% loss that took its losing streak to seven days. It hasn't finished lower for eight consecutive sessions since 2018. Ahead of the open, miner South32 said the development of the Taylor deposit in southern Arizona will take longer and cost more to build than previously thought. Supermarket operator Woolworths said third-quarter sales were up 4.5% from a year earlier. (stuart.condie@wsj.com)
1836 ET [Dow Jones]--Microsoft's Copilot artificial-intelligence assistant is gaining momentum, CEO Satya Nadella tells analysts on a call Wednesday, with weekly engagement on par with Outlook. Microsoft 365 Copilot seat adds rose 250% year over year, giving the platform more than 20 million paid seats, he says. The number of customers with more than 50,000 seats rose fourfold, Nadella adds, and overall Copilot queries per user rose 20% sequentially. (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)
Wall Street seems unsatisfied with Microsoft's investments in artificial-intelligence, with the stock slipping 2.2% to $415.05 in after-hours trading. "Microsoft's 3Q Earnings Fail to Assuage Investors' AI Jitters -- Market Talk," at 4:49 p.m. ET incorrectly said the stock price was $4115.05.
1715 ET - Meta expects to spend more on building out AI data centers this year than it previously projected. The company now forecasts 2026 capital expenditures of $125 billion to $145 billion, up from its prior range of $115 billion to $135 billion. The updated guidance reflects the company's expectations for higher component pricing this year and, to a lesser extent, additional data center costs to support future year capacity, it says. (kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)
1700 ET - Revenue for Alphabet's Google cloud business is surging on demand for its AI platforms and computing power. The cloud unit had sales of $20 billion in the first quarter, up 63% from the same period last year. The growth was led by an increase in Google Cloud Platform across enterprise AI Solutions and enterprise AI Infrastructure, as well as core GCP services, the company says. The growth helped Alphabet's overall revenue climb 22% in the quarter.(kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)
1649 ET - Wall Street seems unsatisfied with Microsoft's investments in artificial-intelligence, with the stock slipping 2.2% to $415.05 in after-hours trading. The company reports sales of $82.9 billion, up 18%, and a profit of $31.8 billion, up 23% - both ahead of analyst expectations. Microsoft's Azure cloud computing business also reported 40% growth, in line with expectations. The company's earnings follow a Tuesday report in The Wall Street Journal that OpenAI had missed internal user and revenue targets, fueling market-wide fears that the returns on artificial-intelligence investments may not be all that Wall Street is hoping for.(elias.schisgall@wsj.com) Corrections & Amplifications
This item was corrected at 5:12 p.m. ET to show that Microsoft's stock fell to $415.05, not $4115.05, in after-hours trading.
1635 ET - With four of the "Magnificent 7" reporting earnings after the bell, Alphabet alone seems to be doing enough to please investors. Shares of Google's parent company rise 3.9% after results beat expectations, with CEO Sundar Pichai unsurprisingly crediting AI investments underpinning much of the growth across the company. Amazon.com, Meta Platforms and Microsoft all also post robust growth, but shares are down out of the gate, with Meta down more than 5% The Facebook owner forecast sales for its current quarter that's in-line with expectation and also bumped up its capex plans for the year, reflecting higher prices for components and, to a lesser extent, additional data center costs. (paul.ziobro@wsj.com)
1606 ET - Ford expects to receive a one-time, $1.3 billion tariff refund following the Supreme Court's February ruling striking down President Trump's global tariffs. The expected refund helped boost the automaker's 1Q profit to $2.55 billion, according to the company's earnings release. Still, Ford suggests that the timing of the refund is unclear, noting that its outlook assumes no benefit to adjusted free cash flow until 2027. The company also says it expects to pay around $1 billion in other tariffs this year. Rival automaker General Motors said Tuesday that it is expecting a $500 million tariff refund. (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)
1604 ET - U.S. stocks end mostly lower as the Federal Reserve maintains rates but splits over the outlook for lower interest rates. Jerome Powell says he will stay on the board as a governor as his chairmanship nears an end. Oil prices jumped after The Wall Street Journal reports that President Trump has told aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran. Attention quickly shifts to results from Meta Platforms, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft after the bell. DJIA falls 280 points, or 0.6%, to 48861, the S&P 500 loses a fraction of a percent to 7135, while the Nasdaq edges higher to 24673. (patrick.sullivan@wsj.com)
1537 ET - Signals of a coming wave of mergers, acquisitions, and initial public offerings are good for alternative asset managers the same way they are good for banks, Oppenheimer analysts write in a note. They view the Alts as irrationally undervalued due to fears of a private credit meltdown, and suggest that investors should reallocate some capital from traditional banks to stocks like KKR, Ares Management, Blue Owl, or Blackstone. Jeffries is another stock that has been hit by private credit fears but nonetheless stands to benefit from the investment banking cycle, they write. "While the bank stock prices generally seem to reflect good news, the Alts are assuming a lot of bad news," the analysts write. "Moreover, it is far-fetched in our minds to posit both an M&A rebound and a private credit meltdown at the same time." (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)
1458 ET - Enphase Energy plans to lower distributor list prices for batteries in Europe by about 10% in May amid intense competition, particularly from low-cost string inverters and battery providers, CEO Badri Kothandaraman says during a call with analysts. That follows a 20% price cut for microinverters implemented in December, Kothandaraman says. The moves come as Europe becomes an increasingly critical market for batteries, he says. "As self-consumption, dynamic tariffs and VPP [virtual power plants] become more important, the company that wins the battery relationship is well positioned to win the broader home energy system over time, including solar, software and VPP," he says. (kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 29, 2026 18:58 ET (22:58 GMT)
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