SO FAR THIS WEEK: Earnings & FOMC recap

FOMC, MSFT, GOOG, META, UNH, Wayfair, Visa unpacked with insights galore

We know your email inbox is being inundated, you’re waist deep in earnings reports and trying to find time to actually focus on the earnings calls while stocks go nuts on the screen in front of you. I’ve been there. So let Inferential Investor boil everything down to concentrated insight and draw out the key themes to connect the dots in this summary:

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This week so far / Key themes:

FOMC / Monetary Policy:

• 25bps cut, QT ended, some dissent on future rate path appearing.

• December looks a lock for another 25bps cut, but the 2026 rate path looks less certain with the market uber-dovish and some small sentiment signals of a more balanced view at the Fed appearing in this latest release.

• Note their comments on growth have changed to “economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace” from “growth…moderated in the first half of the year”. Inflation commentary was consistent.

• I highlight our FOMC report as a must read, as it conveys much more insight than most reporting with the incredible insights our Monetary Policy engineered prompts produce, particularly by extracting signals from the language of the Fed. Dovish/Hawkish sentiment analysis using AI capabilities, red-line statement change tracking, implications for the Fed reaction functions and rates path, extracting, term frequency analysis inside FOMC statements etc. All produced in seconds. The full message from the Fed becomes very tangible with this analysis and you can absorb it in a couple minutes.

Hyperscaler Earnings:

Reports linked below:

• Across the board its been a strong quarter with double beats and revenue acceleration showing we’re at the steepest part of the AI S-curve right now. However there’s some nuances as well. Cloud/AI/Data Center revenue growth is accelerating following a massive increase in AI infrastructure capex. This is also feeding into other cloud service lines for these companies. However Meta shows that cost and depreciation growth could become a rising concern. Right now MSFT and GOOG are managing this far better.

• META: Q3 showed 26% rev growth and 20% EPS growth. But that negative japs you’re seeing there is set to get much worse. The new info in the release is Zuckerberg’s cost WARNINGs. NLP/sentiment analysis shows this is a material concern to 2026 forecasts. Meta is the only one of the three hyperscalers that showed a sentiment decline due to the cost warnings. Zuck’s hiring raids and huge spending spree are coming home to roost.

• MSFT: Q1 FY26 was a blowout quarter. Accelerating revenue (18% growth) and earnings growth with margins beating market and rising (note difference to META!). Azure growth 40% reported. Large upgrades likely. Stock didn’t like it after hours initially but is bouncing back. Management NLP Sentiment increase.

• GOOG: Q3 FY25 was very strong with 3% rev and 7% EPS beat. Rev >$100bn for a quarter for first time. Accelerating revenue growth with Google Cloud accelerating to 34% growth. Management sentiment improvements.

Other Companies with Notable Reports worth your time:

• UnitedHealth / UNH: Yesterday’s villain, tomorrow’s hero? There was nothing here to majorly change analyst forecasts but the report and management comments strongly indicated the re-basing was done and the company is returning to fundamental growth, implicitly giving the tick of approval to analysts 2026 forecasts. Remember however, the legal overhang remains with the medicare fraud investigation etc.

• Visa Inc / V: Just about as steady growth as you can deliver. Interesting points other than the good growth and continuing momentum of the business was management’s reiteration of continued consumer strength and a shift of the message to technology initiatives showing potential for future growth acceleration. View the report and focus on the Management discussion and tone sections. The themes like “payments hyperscaler” and AI that they are calling out are really interesting.

• Wayfair Inc . W: The Wayfair report shows you what our Earnings Transcript Analysis workflow can produce. It realy hits home with the managemetn message shift from tarrif concerns six months ago to now having control of all the levers and pressing the pedal down for growth. A clear turnaround of the business is underway and gathering momentum. Great quarterly result, bringing down debt and like Visa, the management language shows the shift to execution of growth strategies enabled by technology and underpinning their medium term goals of 10%+ EBITDA margins. Sales growth continues to surprise given the sluggish housing market, so its all internal product, customer service and tech initiatives taking share. Structural growth at Cyclical prices? Sounds strange at 38x P/E but its all about the margin story as they are still recovering margins post 2021.

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I’ll try and keep your inboxes as clean as possible over this busy period. When there’s notable reports, they’ll be up on the website under “Stock Research” and periodic email recaps like this will highlight the most interesting opportunities. Follow me Andy West (@HedgeQuartersHQ) and Inferential Investor (@InferentialInv) on X to see when reports are lodged live.

As always,

Inference never stops, Neither should you.

Andy West

The Inferential Investor