Big tech earnings are in focus this week, with results from Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Apple set to dominate market sentiment. Investors will be watching closely for signs of continued AI-driven growth and updates on capital spending plans that could ripple through the broader tech sector.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Jamie Murray, president of The Murray Wealth Group, who highlighted Microsoft and Alphabet as standout picks heading into earnings. He also discussed opportunities in other names such as Starbucks and UnitedHealth, pointing to early signs of stabilization and long-term growth potential.
Key Takeaways
- Big tech earnings this week include Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Apple, representing a major driver for market direction.
- Microsoft and Alphabet are expected to post strong cloud growth, with Azure up 40 per cent and Google Cloud up 30 per cent, fuelled by AI demand.
- Investors will watch for capital spending updates from major tech firms, which could influence chipmakers and infrastructure stocks.
- Starbucks is showing early signs of improvement under CEO Brian Niccol, with potential for long-term earnings growth as store operations stabilize.
- UnitedHealth has reset expectations after cost challenges earlier in the year and could benefit from AI efficiencies and contract repricing.
Read the full transcript below:
ROGER: The tech heavyweights — five of them — are reporting earnings this week. We’ll get results from Microsoft and Alphabet on Wednesday. Those two are names liked by our next guest. Joining me now is Jamie Murray, president of The Murray Wealth Group. Jamie, thanks as always for joining us.
JAMIE: Thanks for having me.
ROGER: Okay, so you’re liking Microsoft and Alphabet. Why those two and not necessarily the other ones in the “Mag Seven”?
JAMIE: Yeah. I mean, we own a handful of these names, but these two are really going to stand out this quarter. I think they’re both reporting Wednesday after the market closes. What we like about each of them is they have a very clear, focused AI strategy that seems to be working right now.
When you think about Microsoft — a behemoth in the market — we think it has the best capital spending plans. They’re not spending as much as competitors, yet their cloud business is expected to grow 40 per cent year over year. Great levels of efficiency with Microsoft.
And then with Alphabet, their Google Cloud business is winning more and more share of that market. The market really likes their TPUs, which are their custom AI chips. Google doesn’t necessarily have to buy NVIDIA chips to run its AI services — it can do that on its own infrastructure. After being a laggard through the first half of the year, the stock’s really accelerating. I think it hit a new all-time high this morning.
ROGER: How important is that cloud revenue? What do you like about it so much?
JAMIE: Yeah, I mean, certainly it’s great because it’s insight right across the entire infrastructure of AI. Right now, it’s a bit of an arms race. We’re seeing new competitors come in — we have the “neo clouds,” we have Oracle working with OpenAI to build out data centres.
But why we like these companies — and we like Meta and Amazon as well — is they really control the entire stack from top to bottom. It’s not just serving up foundation models like OpenAI does. In most cases, they own the infrastructure to run this. They’re building foundation models and selling AI services to the rest of the economy.
Plus, their size means they can leverage AI to make themselves more efficient. Amazon, for instance, is finding huge efficiencies using AI robotics in its factories. These companies are benefiting from selling AI to the rest of the economy and using the services themselves to become more efficient.
ROGER: Any concerns with Google looking internally for its own chips? Do they have a track record for that?
JAMIE: Yeah. Google’s really been a leader in the buildout of AI services. They were a little slow to market, but they’ve been using these chips since, I believe, 2017 or 2018. They’re on their seventh generation of these chips, which they build in collaboration with Broadcom, and they’ve been running their own AI services on them.
It’s interesting to see new companies come through. We saw Anthropic, which has historically been closely tied with Amazon, make a big purchase order for Google’s cloud services using Google’s TPUs just last week.
So, still lots of balls in the air. This industry’s going to be very dynamic over the next two or three years. But these are the way the winds are blowing right now.
ROGER: Okay, and we’re expecting some capex plans coming up for 2026. What are you looking for?
JAMIE: I believe all these companies have raised their capex forecasts in each of the previous quarters. We think we’ll see more of the same. We’ve heard data-centre leasing activity continues to accelerate through the first few weeks of Q3.
Canadian companies such as Hammond Power last week said that, after the quarter ended, they’d seen a 57 per cent increase in their backlog for electricity transformers. That just shows demand for data centres is still accelerating. These are the companies leasing and building them, so we think capex is going to move higher.
We’re not as concerned about the capex for these companies because, if you look at their spending in terms of EBITDA — a shorthand for cash flow — they’re still well below what they have. So, they remain efficient and have lots of cash left over for buybacks, dividends and such. We’re not as concerned as the market seems to be about how much they’re spending.
ROGER: Does it feel like it’s all still in control?
JAMIE: It does. I mean, we’re also seeing shortages in terms of available space and power companies that can actually build the data centres. So there are some governors on how fast this is all moving. The industry would love to accelerate faster and build even more.
What we’re hearing across the board is demand’s outstripping supply. As long as we’re in that dynamic, we think these stocks move higher and capex plans continue to increase.
ROGER: Okay, I want to get to one other — Starbucks. Have a cup of coffee. It’s had a bit of a struggle, but you think they may have turned the corner?
JAMIE: Yeah, we think they’re right at that point where the bottom’s in and they’ll start to see better results moving into 2026. A lot of their issues were self-inflicted. They’ve had lots of CEO turnover over the past decade, and the brand lost some of its lustre.
We think they made a great hire bringing in Brian Niccol about a year ago. He’s really got his hands across the whole business, undoing past wrongs. It’s been a challenging process. They’ve had to increase labour in stores to improve efficiency and close underperforming stores.
At the same time, they’re improving their order algorithm so drinks can be served faster, customers can be happier and throughput can improve during peak times like mornings. We think these changes will start to show up in the financials.
We’re also seeing a struggling U.S. consumer, particularly in the lower half of the income bracket. That occasional consumer isn’t visiting Starbucks or other quick-service restaurants. That’s just an economic issue we think lower interest rates could help with over the medium term.
ROGER: Okay, we’re going to sneak in one more — UnitedHealth. The health industry’s an interesting place right now, isn’t it?
JAMIE: Yeah, it sure is. There’s political noise with Trump and RFK and the changes they’re looking to make. UnitedHealth, typically a steady company, had a terrible first half of the year. Earnings in 2025 are going to be down 40 to 50 per cent when it’s all said and done.
But the stock’s bottomed. We think that happened in early August — it’s up about 30 per cent since then. At a recent investor conference, the company said all the right things: they’re seeing a turnaround and things are getting better.
We think the bottom’s in. There’s a clear plan the new CEO’s outlined to grow earnings and recover into 2027. We’ll be looking for an update on the call. UnitedHealth is a company we like, and we think it can get back to consistent 10 to 15 per cent earnings growth. You’re only paying about a 15-times multiple for that.
ROGER: And is it an indicator of the rest of the sector — the health of the sector too?
JAMIE: Certainly. It’s the barometer for the sector. It’s the largest and the most vertically integrated, though there are still pockets of weakness.
We think much of it came down to medical cost inflation, which affects every company. You have to underwrite what the future cost of a patient will be. Some patients were sicker and required more care than expected. Those are things you can reprice for in 2026 and 2027, but it takes a couple of years for recovery to play through.
So yes, we think the sector will see more normalized margins because that’s where the hit was — on margins, not revenue. As margins recover, that should lift most companies in the sector and lead to better times ahead.
ROGER: Okay, Jamie, thank you, as always, for joining us.
JAMIE: Thanks for having me.
ROGER: Jamie Murray is the president of The Murray Wealth Group.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Oct. 27, 2025 interview with Jamie Murray are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.
