Investors start to price the cost of AI spending
Alphabet fell 12.64% on Thursday, its worst day on record. OpenAI cut its fundraising target to $20bn, according to the Financial Times, and S&P Global moved Meta’s outlook to negative.
Source published · In the Weekly Review of 1 November 2026
Filed under AI industry, Markets
Results from the largest cloud companies turned the week. Alphabet’s cash flow fell deeper into negative territory in the third quarter and its shares lost 12.64% on Thursday, the worst day in the company’s history. Amazon’s report added to concerns about spending, and Microsoft reported strong cloud growth with accelerating capital spending.
The demand for capital was large. In the same week Elon Musk said SpaceX had closed $40bn of debt financing, Meta announced plans to raise about $95bn in equity and Microsoft raised $25bn in a bond sale, according to Fortune. OpenAI cut the target of its funding round to $20bn from $30bn and its expected valuation to $1.25tn from $1.4tn, according to the Financial Times.
Late on Friday S&P Global kept Meta at AA- but changed its outlook to negative from stable. The agency expects Meta’s free operating cash flow to be -$22bn this year and -$71bn in 2027, and said its leverage could pass 1.0x, the downgrade threshold, as soon as 2027, mainly because it leases data-centre capacity.