Microsoft Corp.’s stock is on track for its best monthly performance since October 2007 after an upbeat quarterly report fueled a sharp rally on Thursday, marking a dramatic turnaround for shares that had been under heavy pressure for most of this year.

Microsoft stock gained 15.5% on Thursday, adding a record $450 billion to the company’s market capitalization in a single day. The move eclipsed Nvidia Corp.’s $440 billion addition, following President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 90-day tariff pause last year, as the biggest ever, according to Bloomberg.

The gains came after Microsoft reported that revenue for its Azure cloud unit surged 43% during the fiscal fourth quarter, the most since early 2022. Microsoft also said its capital spending plans for 2026 are unchanged.

Big Tech peer Amazon also  better-than-expected results and a 37% rise in its Amazon Web Services business, sending its stock up 12% in Friday’s premarket trading.

MSFT Stock Move, Retail View 

is coming off a difficult stretch. MSFT registered its worst half-year performance since 2000 and the weakest showing among the Magnificent Seven stocks in the first half of 2026.

The company has come under pressure amid a broader selloff in software stocks, hefty capital spending plans and intensifying competition in AI from Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI. MSFT remains down 6.3% year-to-date.

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment held in the ‘extremely bullish’ zone, unchanged since the company’s earnings report on Wednesday. “$MSFT exited yesterday - if we see around 370 again I’ll be interested,” a trader .

Microsoft’s Q4 Recap

Microsoft’s total revenue climbed 18% to $90 billion last quarter, beating analysts’ estimate of $87.7 billion from Fiscal.ai. Azure growth rate in the quarter was 43%, higher than the previous quarter’s 40% growth rate, and CEO Satya Nadella said the business surpassed $100 billion for the first time in fiscal year 2026.

Adjusted profit was $4.81 per share, also higher than analysts’ target of $4.24 per share.

Microsoft forecast a fiscal 2027 first-quarter sales range with a midpoint ​of $90.4 billion, above estimates of $89.66 billion from LSEG/Reuters. The company forecast Azure growth of 45% on a constant currency basis, well above analyst estimates of 40.92% from Visible Alpha.

Microsoft kept its 2026 capital expenditures forecast unchanged, even as Alphabet and Amazon raised their forecasts.

“Results are good overall, as Azure growth and all three segments beat the high end of guidance,” Morningstar said in a new report. “Further, the outlook is slightly ahead of our model for the first quarter. Critically, we see strength in Azure, in both traditional and artificial intelligence workloads, which is pulling along other AI solutions.”

Morningstar maintained its $600 price target on the MSFT stock.