Microsoft pops more than 7% after earnings beat, posts best day since 2022

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, speaking on CNBC's "Squawk Box" outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2025. Microsoft shares popped 7.6% Thursday after the software giant issued strong guidance and robust cloud growth drove a top- and bottom-line beat in the third quarter. Shares notched their best day since November 2022. Azure revenues topped estimates, growing 33% year over year. Microsoft attributed 16 points of that growth to artificial intelligence. Analysts polled by StreetAccount and CNBC had anticipated 30.3%. "Clearly, the macro environment remains a wild card, but with Azure back in 'beat/raise' mode, we believe that overhang now turns into a tailwind and highlights not only the significant demand for AI services on Azure, but also MSFT's broad base of infrastructure offerings to support the ongoing migration of enterprise workloads to the cloud," wrote Evercore ISI's Kirk Materne. During its fiscal second-quarter results, Microsoft's Azur ... Read full article.