Cash is king as investors draw new battle lines in AI spending boom

By Aditya Soni and Deborah Mary Sophia

Thu, October 29, 2026 at 8:29 AM PDT 4 min read

By Aditya Soni and Deborah Mary Sophia

Oct 29 (Reuters) - Cash flow is king again.

Wall Street rewarded Microsoft and Oracle on Wednesday for showing that they could fund their enormous AI ambitions without endlessly tapping investors.

Alphabet, by contrast, was punished for burning through cash, while Google Search's slower growth fanned fears that competition was hurting the business that bankrolls its AI expansion.

Alphabet shares fell more than 12% on Thursday, putting the Google parent on track for its worst day with a roughly $500 billion wipeout in market value.

Microsoft shed its premarket gains and was last down about 1% after a report said it was seeking to raise $25 billion in its first U.S. investment-grade bond sale in more than nine years.

The debt raise is still much smaller than its peers so far this year.…