Stock Market Today: Alphabet's 10 Percent Slide Drags Nasdaq Futures Lower as Microsoft Rises and the Fed Holds

The search bars noticed before the opening bell did. 'Stock market today' led U.S. Google searches overnight into Thursday, driven by a single stock: Alphabet, Google's parent, fell 10 percent in after-hours trading after its earnings showed hefty cash burn from its artificial-intelligence build-out — a slide that wiped nearly $400 billion off its market value and pulled Nasdaq futures about 1 percent lower, Reuters reported.

The same earnings hour produced the opposite verdict one ticker over. Microsoft beat forecasts with better-than-expected cash flows, and its shares rose 3 percent — the market's overnight message being less 'AI is over' than 'show us the cash.' In Asia, Samsung Electronics reported third-quarter operating profit up nearly ninefold to a record on AI-chip demand, and its shares still slid more than 4 percent, dragging Seoul's benchmark down with them. Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.7 percent overall.

Underneath the earnings, the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday, as widely expected — but not unanimously in the direction markets assume. Two committee members voted for a rate hike, and Chair Kevin Warsh struck a more confident note on the inflation outlook at his press conference, sparking a rally in Treasuries.

All of these are overnight and pre-market moves, not the verdict of a trading day — the U.S. cash market had not opened when this file was staged. The next test arrives quickly: Amazon and Intel report later Thursday, and after Alphabet's punishment for spending, their cash-flow lines will be read as closely as their revenue.