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Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

Magnificent Seven members Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta Platforms all beat Wall Street’s expectations yesterday, exceeding estimates for earnings per share and revenue while talking up expansion plans. But investors’ responses varied widely.

Here’s what to know:

• Alphabet shares surged more than 7% after the Google parent beat the Street’s forecasts for revenue tied to its Google Cloud and YouTube businesses. Executives said they plan to significantly ramp up spending next year to build infrastructure that can meet demand around AI.
• Meanwhile, shares of Microsoft slid more than 2% after the company forecasted increased spending growth this year and a said it took a $3.1 billion hit from its OpenAI investment. Microsoft went into yesterday’s report on its back foot as it addressed an outage affecting its Azure and 365 services.
• Meta shares tumbled 9% as traders focused on a one-time tax charge and a $4.4 billion loss from its Reality Labs business. CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the Facebook parent’s big AI spending to analysts, saying the company is “seeing the returns.”
• Next up for Big Tech earnings: Apple and Amazon. The other two Magnificent Seven members report after the bell.
• Microsoft and Meta’s declines are weighing on stock futures this morning. Follow live markets updates here.

Investors seemed to get what they wanted when the Federal Reserve announced it was lowering interest rates by 25 basis points yesterday. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell threw cold water on market bulls with just five words.

Powell said that it “is not a foregone conclusion” that the central bank will lower rates again at its December meeting. Stocks took a leg down following the comment, dragging the Dow into the red after it notched all-time highs earlier in yesterday’s session.

The central bank chief also said the AI spending boom is “different” from the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s. Powell pointed out that companies involved in today’s AI bonanza “actually have earnings.”

Here are the biggest takeaways from the Fed meeting.

President Donald Trump said he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping reached a trade agreement following their meeting in South Korea — a significant development after months of tension between the two countries.

Trump said he would immediately halve fentanyl-related tariffs on China to 10% from 20%. The reduction moves the overall tariff rate on the Asian country down to 47% from 57%. In return, Beijing will restart soybean purchases and make an effort to quell the flow of fentanyl to the U.S.

China will also delay closely monitored export controls on rare earth materials for one year, Trump said.

Tech stocks aren’t the only thing driving the market this morning. Chipotle shares tumbled more than 18% after the fast casual chain missed third-quarter revenue expectations and cut its sales outlook, citing troubles with its younger consumer base.

Starbucks, meanwhile, shed around 3% after the coffee chain posted cooler-than-anticipated earnings per share in its fourth quarter. But the chain recorded same-store sales growth for the first time in almost two years and said its coffee delivery business exceeded $1 billion in sales during the fiscal 2025 year.

On the brighter side: Restaurant Brands International beat Wall Street forecasts on both lines for the third quarter, boosted by strength in its Tim Hortons brand and international business. Shares popped 3% in premarket trading this morning.

Comcast beat analysts’ estimates for the third quarter this morning despite failing to grow its broadband subscriber base for the fourth straight quarter. Investors will closely monitor executives’ call with analysts this morning for any comments on a potential acquisition of competitor Warner Bros. Discovery or some of its assets.

Wall Street has cast doubt over the likelihood that Trump would greenlight a Comcast-WBD deal. But people familiar with the matter told CNBC’s Alex Sherman that some Comcast executives think these concerns are blown out of proportion or too early to adequately assess. A Comcast spokesperson declined to comment.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant.

Alphabet stock jumped 4% Thursday after the company reported third-quarter financial results that beat across the board and increased its capital expenditures for the year.

The Google parent company bumped its spending expectations on artificial intelligence infrastructure to $91-$93 billion from $85 billion the prior quarter, noting continued strong cloud demand.

CEO Sundar Pichai said the company had a $155 billion backlog for Google Cloud at the end of the quarter.

“Looking out to 2026, we expect a significant increase in CapEx,” Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi told investors on the earnings call Wednesday.

Deutsche Bank said in a note that there was “virtually no hair on the print,” and wrote that the setup coming into the report was not easy, with the stock up 43% since Alphabet issued second-quarter earnings.

PRO: Alphabet is soaring after its latest earnings report. What Wall Street analysts are saying

Alphabet reported third-quarter earnings of $3.10 adj. per share on revenue of $102.35 billion in revenue, its first quarter ever with revenue above the $100 billion benchmark.

Analysts polled by LSEG expected earnings of $2.33 per share with revenue of $99.89 billion.

The strong quarter and a boost in capital spending impressed analysts and solidified Alphabet’s position as an AI leader.

“We continue to see multiple fronts where Alphabet has climbed a steep wall of worry in the past 12 months around the AI theme and don’t see any reasons to suspect a pause or step back in terms of its operating proof points to change investor perception,” Goldman Sachs said in a note.

The Goldman Sachs raised its price target to $330 from $288.

Analysts were also watching for signs of how AI is affecting search, an area the company dominates.

Google’s search arm posted $56.56 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 15% over a year ago.

“The AI search transition has been viewed as the greatest risk to Google, but additional signs that AI search is more opportunity than threat will continue to flip the narrative,” JPMorgan analysts wrote in a note.

The analysts raised their price target on the company to $340 from $300.

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this story.

Meta Platforms‘ stock dropped more than 10% on Thursday as skepticism about the payoff from its aggressive artificial intelligence spending plans overshadowed strong results.

The social media giant lifted its 2025 capital expenditures guidance as it races against competitors to build out advanced AI tools. Meta now expects capex to range between $70 billion and $72 billion, versus prior guidance of $66 billion to $72 billion.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company’s ambitious spending plans during the earnings call Wednesday.

“It’s pretty early, but I think we’re seeing the returns in the core business,” he said. “That’s giving us a lot of confidence that we should be investing a lot more, and we want to make sure that we’re not underinvesting.”

Zuckerberg said the company is “aggressively” preemptively building up capacity to prepare for the arrival of superintelligence, where Meta will be “ideally positioned for a generational paradigm shift in many large opportunities.”

Like its peers, Meta has shelled out billions to beef up its AI offerings in an increasingly competitive landscape — and it isn’t the only one. On Wednesday, Alphabet boosted its capex forecast to $91 billion to $93 billion, and Microsoft said it expects heightened spending growth this fiscal year.

Earlier this year, Meta invested $14.3 billion in AI startup Scale AI and lured its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to lead its AI initiative called Superintelligence Labs with former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.

Meta has also inked several new cloud deals to build out AI infrastructure.

For the third quarter, Meta reported adjusted earnings of $7.25 per share on $51.24 billion in revenue and topped Wall Street’s estimates.

Revenue grew 26% from a year ago and the company reported a $15.93 billion tax charge from the rollout of President Donald Trump‘s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed reporting

WATCH: Meta reports Q3 earnings beat, company takes one-time tax charge