October 24, 2026
Bonus Content: Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Intel Report in 48 Hours. The Capex Line Is the Only Number That Matters.
Dear Reader,
You lock your doors. You shred your mail. You watch what you post online.
But on June 18th, five federal agencies, including the Federal Reserve, proposed a rule that reaches somewhere most people never think to protect…
Your money.
Private companies now issue their own digital dollars, used for payments and transfers online.
The new rule would require those companies to identify every customer the same way a bank does.
Your name, attached to every digital dollar you buy.
Most people missed it.
They were busy celebrating the July 11th ban on the Fed’s digital dollar, which does nothing to stop the private versions.
Now you might be thinking…
“I don’t use digital dollars. Why should I care?”
Because Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi and Capital One are among 21 financial institutions planning a joint one, targeting launch next year.
A digital dollar backed by Visa and Mastercard went live September 30th.
PayPal’s is already in Venmo.
Zelle has announced one too.
Sooner or later, the dollars in your accounts will likely move through these systems.
And any privacy-minded person should read this twice…
Right now, the rule only covers buying digital dollars from the company.
But the agencies are considering going further.
Tracking your name every time those dollars change hands.
Person to person. Payment to payment.
Public comments closed August 21st. Now the decision is up to them.
It’s being framed as crime prevention.
It always is… isn’t it?
What’s in your safe is yours. What’s in the bank is a promise.
Digital dollars work like the bank.
A company stands behind every one, and by law that company must be able to freeze them.
But some digital assets have no company or bank behind them at all. You hold them directly, like what’s in your safe.
That’s why I recorded a free presentation on our “Digital Dollar Immunity” System.
It shows how we hold a portion of our assets outside that system.
4,500+ members are already doing this.
If you have $50k+ saved for retirement and want to protect your family from whatever comes next, watch it now:
Click Here To Reveal The “Digital Dollar Immunity” System →
To your wealth,
Tan Gera, CFA®
Decentralized Masters
P.S. The public comment window closed August 21st. The final rule is still coming.
Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Intel Report in 48 Hours. The Capex Line Is the Only Number That Matters.
Meta reported record third-quarter revenue of $64.6 billion on Wednesday, October 21, then watched its stock fall the next day. The reason was not the revenue. Meta raised the low end of its full-year capital expenditure outlook to $135 billion to $145 billion, and free cash flow came in at negative $2.12 billion for the quarter. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6% on October 22, its largest single-day drop since June, and chip stocks led the selloff. That is the market the next four companies are walking into.
Microsoft and Alphabet report Wednesday, October 28, after the close. Amazon and Intel follow Thursday, October 29.
What Analysts Expect
Microsoft is expected to post earnings of $4.72 per share on revenue of about $90.6 billion, compared with $4.13 per share and $77.67 billion a year ago. Alphabet is a similar story. Analysts expect $3.03 per share on revenue of $127.92 billion; a year ago the company reported $2.87 per share on $102.35 billion.
Amazon carries more uncertainty. The consensus EPS estimate is $1.96 on revenue of $202.16 billion. AWS revenue reached $42.2 billion in Q2 2026, up 37% year over year, its fastest growth in 18 quarters, with operating income of $16.6 billion. The cloud unit is the only line the market will care about Thursday. Amazon has signaled an unusually heavy AI and infrastructure investment cycle, and investors have been watching the free cash flow tradeoff closely.
Intel is the outlier in this group. Analysts expect earnings of roughly $0.40 per share on revenue of $16.46 billion, compared with $0.23 per share on $13.65 billion a year ago. Still, the stock has been volatile, leaving the report as both a test of turnaround durability and a potential reset.
The Question Behind Every Number
The market is no longer simply asking whether these companies are growing. It is asking whether the capex they are committing can ever produce returns proportional to the cost. Meta and others delivered strong numbers and still got punished, because the market is now judging AI on cost, not just on growth.
Estimates for hyperscaler AI and data center spending in 2026 vary by methodology, but the direction is not in dispute. The number is huge, and the market is increasingly focused on how it is funded, and when it pays back. Goldman Sachs has projected that hyperscaler capex could approach about $1.2 trillion in 2027.
The Fed meeting lands on the same Wednesday as Microsoft and Alphabet. The Federal Reserve meets October 27 to 28 and announces its decision October 28. The Fed raised the target range for the federal funds rate to 3.75% to 4.00% at its September 2026 meeting, and that is the level markets are now centered on heading into this decision. A hawkish hold tightens the financial conditions that make this level of capex progressively more expensive to finance.
Where the Dispersion Sits
Alphabet has the clearest near-term AI revenue story. In the prior quarter, management highlighted 82% year-over-year revenue growth in Google Cloud. Microsoft and Amazon are spending more aggressively and showing it in their cash flows. Intel is the recovery candidate, where the bar is lower and the surprise potential, in either direction, is the highest.
Early in the Q3 reporting season, beat rates have been strong, with FactSet-style tallies commonly showing a large majority of reporters beating EPS estimates. The backdrop is strong. The question is whether four companies can show that the AI bill they are running up is already generating something worth owning.
Risks to Monitor
The bear case is not that AI spending stops. It is that spending accelerates while monetization lags, widening the gap between committed capital and demonstrated returns. If hyperscalers fail to generate adequate returns on their AI investments, spending could cool and ripple back through the semiconductor supply chain, pressuring demand for Nvidia’s chips and the stock multiple. A surprise hike from the Fed on October 28, though unlikely, would compound the pressure by raising the cost of every dollar these companies are borrowing to build.
Bottom Line
Meta’s earnings this week reframed the question the market is asking every hyperscaler. Revenue growth is expected. Cash flow discipline is now what separates the winners. Investors watching these four prints should weight capex guidance and free cash flow commentary equally with headline EPS. Alphabet has described itself as being in its 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth, driven in part by AI demand. Amazon’s AWS just hit its fastest growth in 18 quarters. The numbers are real. The cost of building them is also real, and the market has just started making that distinction.