S&P 500 After Two Losing Weeks: The Fed Meeting Opens…

The S&P 500 enters the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting after two consecutive weekly declines, and Monday’s 0.70% gain still left the index at 7,676.77, under the 50-day moving average that Charles Schwab put at about 7,699. Monday’s bid came from Anthropic’s public IPO filing rather than from anything the market itself produced.

Three days now carry a rate decision on Wednesday, results from Microsoft and Alphabet that evening, results from Amazon on Thursday, and the first reading of third-quarter output the same morning. The AI trade supplied the S&P 500 with a reason to rise on Monday. Whether it supplies one for the week is the question these events answer.

Monday’s 0.70% Gain Left the S&P 500 Below Its 50-Day Average

Advancers beat decliners 289 to 214 on Monday, up volume ran 1.5 billion shares against 1.3 billion down, and 71% of constituents closed above their 20-day average. Only 59% were above the 50-day, which is the line the S&P 500 itself failed to clear.

The month tells a different story about who has been carrying the index. The equal-weight version has beaten the S&P 500 by 3.7% over the past month, and 71% of members have outperformed. Over three months that figure falls to 36%.

Alphabet is down 7.30% over a month and 5.74% over five sessions. Amazon is down 5.18% over five sessions. Microsoft is the exception at 6.73% higher over a month. Two of the three companies reporting this week have been the drag on the S&P 500 rather than its engine.

Anthropic’s Filing Commits $252.5 Billion to the Three Companies Reporting

Monday’s rally traced to Anthropic’s public prospectus, which disclosed about $16.3 billion of revenue in the six months to June against $4.6 billion for all of 2025, and a net loss of $80.7 billion that the filing attributes mostly to accounting charges. The company plans to trade on Nasdaq as ANT. Chip names including Nvidia, Broadcom and Micron rose with it.

The filing also set out roughly $518 billion of planned cloud, compute and infrastructure obligations, about 80% of them binding and non-cancelable, as Reuters read the prospectus. Broadcom accounts for about $161.2 billion of that. Google accounts for about $111.1 billion, Amazon for $110 billion and Microsoft for about $31.4 billion.

Those three add to $252.5 billion, close to half the total, and all three report by Thursday night. None of it appears in the quarters they are about to disclose. The customer published the backlog before the vendors did, which is an unusual order of disclosure and the clearest reason the S&P 500 bid on Monday ran through cloud and semiconductors.

Investor Takeaway

The October Meeting Was Repriced From 64% Hike to 9% in a Month

CME FedWatch put the probability of no change at 90.6% as of 06:55 Central on 27 October, against 9.4% for a 25 basis point increase to 400-425. A month earlier those numbers were inverted, with a hike at 64.2% and a hold at 35.8%. A week ago the hold stood at 84.5%, and on Monday at 88.9%.

Polymarket’s October market prices no change at 92.7% with $24.79 million of volume, inside an event pool of $76.44 million.

The September meeting raised the target range 25 basis points to 3.75-4.00%. September CPI then came in 0.6% higher on the month and 3.7% on the year, with core at 0.3% and 2.6%, so the inflation case for patience is thin and the case against is still unproven.

That is why Chair Kevin Warsh’s language carries more weight than the decision. Polymarket’s December market prices a 25 basis point increase at 76% and no change at 21%. Collin Martin, head of fixed income research at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, wrote on Monday that “we don’t expect clear forward guidance from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh,” and that he expects a hike in December.

Microsoft and Alphabet Wednesday Night, Amazon and GDP on Thursday

Microsoft reports fiscal first-quarter results after Wednesday’s close, with a call at 5:30 p.m. Eastern. Consensus sits near $90.62 billion of revenue and $4.71 a share. Alphabet follows the same evening, with consensus near $128.18 billion and $3.02, and 2026 capital spending guidance already raised to $195-205 billion.

Amazon reports Thursday, with its call at 2:00 p.m. Pacific, against consensus of $202.24 billion and $1.97 a share. The Bureau of Economic Analysis releases advance third-quarter GDP and September personal income and outlays the same morning at 8:30 Eastern.

Schwab counts roughly a third of the S&P 500 reporting this week. Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet carry weights of 5.96%, 3.69% and 2.25% in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. Strategist Alexandra Semenova wrote that “the AI trade is entering a more demanding phase,” with investors focused on whether returns justify the spending. The same question drove CoreWeave’s selloff and the neocloud derating earlier this year, and it ran through Meta’s $35 billion equity sale last week and Microsoft’s 60,000 buyout offers on Monday.

Reclaiming 7,699 Is the Nearest Technical Test for the S&P 500

Schwab places support at 7,600 to 7,620 and the 50-day average near 7,699, which is 0.29% above Monday’s close. The index remains 11.61% higher for the year and 13.36% higher over twelve months, so the two losing weeks have dented a trend rather than ended one. The first of the two down weeks took the Nasdaq Composite 4.5% lower and the S&P 500 about 1.9% lower, and the second cost a further 0.7%.

Microsoft traded 0.75% lower at $528.60 before Tuesday’s open, with Alphabet 0.22% higher at $314.89 and Amazon 0.39% higher at $250.05. Three names, three directions, hours before the first of them reports.

Investor Takeaway