Stock Market Today, Thursday July 30: Microsoft +8%, Meta -5%, and a Core PCE Print the Fed Cannot Ignore

TL;DR

• Yesterday was ugly and tonight was not. The Dow fell 2.19% to 51,594.14, its worst day since April 2025, then Microsoft rose about 8% after hours on $678 billion of contracted backlog and Meta fell about 5% on a 13% EPS miss.
• Nasdaq 100 futures are up only about 0.7%, recovering under half of yesterday's loss. That gap between Microsoft's 8% and the index's 0.7% is the single most important number going into the open.
• 8:30am ET is the real event, not the earnings. June core PCE is expected at 3.3% year over year, down from May's three-year high of 3.4%, alongside the first estimate of Q2 GDP at about +2.3%.
• That print lands one day after three FOMC members voted to hike. A hot core PCE turns three dissents into a September problem. A cool one buys the market a fortnight.
• Then it happens again after the close: Apple and Amazon both report, and Apple's call at 5:00pm ET is Tim Cook's last as CEO.

What Time Is Everything Today?

The short answer: 8:30am ET for the data, 9:30am for the gaps, and after the close for Apple and Amazon. Here is the full run.

• 8:30am ET. The heaviest data drop of the week, all at once. June core PCE, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, expected +0.1% to +0.2% month over month and 3.3% year over year versus 3.4% in May. Headline PCE expected -0.1% monthly and 3.6% annual, down from 4.1%. The first estimate of Q2 GDP, expected around +2.3% annualised versus +2.1%. Plus personal income (+0.3% expected, from +0.7%), personal spending (+0.4%, from +0.7%) and weekly jobless claims.
• Before the open. A genuinely dense pre-bell slate: Mastercard, Shell, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cigna, Altria, Valero, Ferrari, Stellantis, Regeneron, Hershey, ICE and AB InBev. Mastercard is the one to read for consumer health.
• 9:30am ET. The open, where Microsoft's and Meta's overnight moves meet actual volume for the first time.
• After the close. Apple and Amazon, the last two megacaps of the season.
• 5:00pm ET. Apple's conference call, Tim Cook's final one as chief executive, with CFO Kevan Parekh. Robinhood's call is at the same time.

The Board

Two scheduled events can move the whole tape today. Neither of them is an earnings report.

Do the Microsoft and Meta Gaps Hold?

This is the question everyone will actually be trading, so be precise about what is being asked.

Microsoft's case for holding is the strongest of any gap this season. The 8% was not bought on a revenue beat. It was bought on commercial RPO of $678 billion, up 84%, and up 25% excluding OpenAI. That is contracted, signed backlog, which is exactly the receipt the market has spent two weeks demanding from every company spending on AI. Microsoft also went in down roughly 18% year to date, so there is little crowded length to unwind. Full detail in the Microsoft breakdown.

Meta's case for falling further is also strong. Revenue grew 28% and the stock still dropped, because operating costs grew 55%, operating income fell 8%, and $31.86 billion of operating cash flow converted to $784 million of free cash flow. None of that improves overnight. See the Meta breakdown.

The thing to watch is not the direction, it is the shape of the first hour. An 8% gap that opens up 8% and closes up 8% is real money repositioning. One that opens up 8% and fades to 4% by 11am is after-hours enthusiasm meeting daylight, and that is the classic signature of a bear-market rally. We put the sector-wide version of this question in can Microsoft save tech stocks?, and the short answer there was that 0.7% in the futures says the market is not extrapolating.

What Yesterday's Fed Decision Left Behind

Do not treat yesterday as finished business. It set up today.

The Fed held at 3.50% to 3.75% for a fifth straight meeting, but on a 9-3 vote, with Hammack, Kashkari and Logan all voting to hike 25 basis points. Chair Warsh delivered a much shorter statement with forward guidance stripped out.

The bond market's answer was the part that mattered. The 2-year fell 4bp to 4.236% while the 10-year rose above 4.67% and the 30-year jumped past 5.193%. Short end down, long end up: a bear steepener, which is the market saying policy is behind on inflation. That, not the rate decision, is what produced a 2.19% down day. Full mechanics in last night's Fed piece.

So the 30-year yield is the number to check before you look at the S&P this morning. If it keeps rising, every rally in long-duration growth is borrowed, Microsoft's backlog included.

Core PCE Is the Real Event

Here is why 8:30am outranks two megacap earnings reports.

Three Fed members just voted to raise rates. The single piece of evidence that decides whether they recruit more colleagues by September is the Fed's own preferred inflation measure, and it prints this morning.

• Core PCE at or below 3.3% confirms the disinflation the doves need. The hawks lose momentum, the long end can retrace, and the market gets a fortnight of relief.
• Core PCE at 3.4% or above means inflation stalled at a three-year high with the Fed on hold and a 5.19% 30-year already pricing that risk. That is the scenario nobody has positioned for, and it would make yesterday's selloff look like a warm-up.

Note the composition too. Personal spending decelerating to +0.4% from +0.7% while income slows to +0.3% is a softening consumer, which cuts inflation risk and growth expectations at the same time. A Q2 GDP first estimate near +2.3% would argue the economy is fine and the Fed has room to stay hawkish. Those two can conflict, and the tape will pick whichever one hurts most.

Apple and Amazon After the Close

Both land tonight, both matter, for opposite reasons.

Apple is expected to post revenue of about $108.9 billion, up roughly 16% from $94.0 billion, with diluted EPS of $1.89, up about 20%. iPhone revenue is modelled up 23% to $54.8 billion. And the call is Tim Cook's last as CEO, which makes the commentary unusually consequential. Our full setup is in the Apple preview.

Amazon is the one that inherits Microsoft's question. Consensus is revenue of $196.97 billion, up 18%, with adjusted EPS of $1.82 and AWS at about $40.5 billion, up 31%. The market has crept its 2026 capex expectation to roughly $207 billion, up about $2 billion since Alphabet reported. Microsoft answered the capex question with backlog. Amazon has to answer it too. See the Amazon preview.

The Playbook

• Check the 30-year before the S&P. It is the variable that decides whether today's gap-up survives. Above 5.20% and rising, be sceptical of everything.
• Do not add risk before 8:30am. There is a scheduled information event in the morning. Buying ahead of it is paying for the privilege of being surprised.
• Judge the Microsoft gap at 11am, not 9:31am. Opening prints on an 8% gap are noise. The first hour of real volume is the signal.
• Two megacap reports after the close means tonight is not a night to hold short-dated premium either way. If you want exposure through Apple and Amazon, own it in shares or in defined-risk structures, and read calls and puts explained before sizing anything into a double print.
• The bull case against all this caution: a cool core PCE plus a Microsoft gap that holds plus decent Apple numbers is a genuine three-catalyst turn, and the correction would be over by Friday. That path exists. It just requires all three, and yesterday's bond market did not act like a market about to get all three.

The One-Line Read

Microsoft up 8% on real contracted backlog is the best news tech has had in a fortnight, and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.7% is the market telling you it will not extrapolate: today is decided at 8:30am by core PCE, not at 9:30am by the gaps, because three Fed members just voted to hike and the 30-year at 5.193% is already pricing that they were right.