Amazon Earnings Land After Thursday's Close, With Intel Reporting the Same Night and GDP and PCE Inflation Data First

The search that led America's business morning on Wednesday — 'stock market today' — gets its sequel on Thursday, and it has a schedule. The Bureau of Economic Analysis releases its advance estimate of third-quarter GDP and the September PCE price index, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Then, after the closing bell, Amazon and Intel report third-quarter results.

Amazon is the day's headline act. The company reports against its own guidance of $197 billion to $202 billion in net sales and $22.5 billion to $26.5 billion in operating income, with analyst consensus, as listed on TheStreet Pro's earnings calendar, at $1.97 a share on $202.22 billion of revenue. Its cloud arm is the number underneath the number: AWS sales rose 37 percent to $42.2 billion in the second quarter. Intel, reporting the same night, carries consensus of $0.41 a share on $16.54 billion, with its foundry progress and data-center demand the questions.

The backdrop is unforgiving. Alphabet fell 9.97 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday after its results showed heavy AI cash burn, and futures leaned down overnight — Nasdaq 100 futures off 1.22 percent and S&P 500 futures off 0.39 percent in the small hours, with Dow futures up 0.37 percent. Amazon closed Wednesday up 0.59 percent at $254.60; Intel rose 1.91 percent to $95.53 and then slipped 2.63 percent after hours, before its own numbers are even out.

Over it all sits Wednesday's Fed decision: rates held in a 3.75 to 4 percent range, but with two members, Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack, voting for a quarter-point increase — a hawkish dissent that makes Thursday's PCE print more than a formality. Nothing in this file is a result: Amazon and Intel had not reported when it was staged. Their numbers, and the market's verdict on their AI spending, belong to tonight.