Making Cents Sense

STOCK ANALYSIS | TECHNOLOGY | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Apparently, doubling your cloud business isn't enough anymore. Wall Street would also appreciate it if you stopped spending money like you're personally financing the construction of the Death Star. By Tony Hicks | October 31, 2026 | Approximately 3,000 words ALPHABET INC. — Q3 2026 AT A GLANCE $127.6B Revenue +25% year over year $30.7B Cloud revenue +103% year over year −$9.1B Free cash flow Negative for the quarter $51.4B Capital expenditures +114% year over year Source: Alphabet's October 28, 2026 earnings release and management commentary. SEC+2 Google Cloud Grew 103%—But Alphabet Burned $9 Billion and Search Missed Expectations Alphabet's AI revolution is producing spectacular growth. Unfortunately, the bill is arriving faster than the cash. There are certain moments in investing when I look at a company's financial results and wonder whether Wall Street has collectively lost its mind. Alphabet's third-q...

STOCK ANALYSIS · AMAZON (NASDAQ: AMZN) · OCTOBER 30, 2026 Amazon is making more money than ever, AWS is growing like it found a cheat code, and operating margins are breaking records. So naturally, the company has managed to produce negative $42.4 billion in free cash flow. Welcome to the wonderfully expensive world of artificial intelligence, where apparently the first rule of making money is spending all of it—and then another $42 billion. By Tony Hicks | Approximately 3,000 words | Investment Analysis & Commentary AMZN · THIRD-QUARTER EARNINGS Operating margin 13.9% Company record AWS growth +39% Year over year TTM free cash flow −$42.4B Cash outflow Source: Amazon's October 29, 2026 earnings release . Figures cover different reporting periods as labeled. Congratulations, Amazon. You've Never Been More Profitable. Now Where Did All the Cash Go? There are certain moments in investing when I stare at a company's financial statements and wonder whether I've accident...

By Tony Hicks | October 30, 2026 Introduction: Apparently, Good Companies Become Terrible Investments Overnight There is something deeply entertaining about watching Wall Street lose its collective mind. One week, a company is considered an unstoppable wealth-building machine. Analysts are praising management, investors are predicting extraordinary growth, and financial television personalities are discussing the stock as though owning it represents a basic requirement for participating in modern civilization. Then the company reports earnings, misses some expectation that may or may not have been reasonable in the first place, and suddenly everybody behaves as though the business has begun operating out of a cardboard box. I have never understood why investors are so comfortable paying ridiculous prices for companies when everything looks wonderful, yet become terrified of purchasing those same businesses when their valuations start making sense. It's like refusing to buy a perfec...