Research from Water Tower Research, Water Tower Research

Water Tower Research

Research from Water Tower Research

Water Tower Research is a leading equity research firm that provides research on micro, small and mid cap companies.

Water Tower Research was founded by Wall Street veterans after witnessing a fundamental shift in the investment research industry with the result being a declining knowledge base among investors, a lack of awareness and a shrinking pool of fundamental research being conducted on companies across the small-cap and micro-cap spectrum. The same issues are now increasingly occurring in the mid-cap space. This sea change within the investment community is impacting not only the companies themselves but also current shareholders and potential investors. With significantly less active sell-side sponsorship by Wall Street, a substantial information gap has developed between companies and various constituents in the financial community. The net result is fewer channels for insight and information to flow between companies and investors.

Equity Research Firm

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul><li>This month’s AI landscape reveals a market at an inflection point, with record infrastructure commitments colliding with growing bubble anxiety. </li><li>Meta’s staggering $600-billion US buildout plan and Anthropic’s $50-billion data center announcements underscore that the compute arms race is accelerating, not cooling.</li><li>Yet caution signals are flashing, as CoreWeave trimmed its full-year guidance despite strong 3Q results, while Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius Group all saw pressure on their stocks. </li></ul>

This month’s AI landscape reveals a market at an inflection point, with record infrastructure commitments colliding with growing bubble anxiety. Meta’s staggering $600-billion US buildout plan and Anthropic’s $50-billion data center announcements underscore that the compute arms race is accelerating, not cooling.Yet caution signals are flashing, as CoreWeave trimmed its full-year guidance despite strong 3Q results, while Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius Group all saw pressure on their stocks. 

AI Flow Newsletter : Monitoring The "Currents" Of AI

External broker reports(aggregated public sources), CMB International

CMB International

External broker reports(aggregated public sources)

Incorporated in Hong Kong, supported by the mainland and targeting in global market, CMB International Capital Corporation Limited (“CMBI”) is an integrated financial institution providing comprehensive and professional services. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Merchants Bank ("CMB"), by leveraging on the Group’s synergy and coordination in domestic and overseas markets, as well as CMB’s strong resources and outstanding social reputation, CMBI and its subsidiaries have been actively implementing diversified business strategies and set up an overall layout of main business segments including Corporate Finance, Asset Management, Wealth Management, Global Markets and Structured Finance, etc. Adhering to the philosophy of “being clients oriented and increasing our own values by the way of creating value for clients”, CMBI endeavors to provide quality and integrated financial services to institutional, corporate and individual customers both domestic and overseas including Hong Kong IPO sponsorship and underwriting, share placement and rights issue for listed companies, financial advisors, bonds issuance services, asset management, direct investment, wealth management, equity sales and trading, etc.

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul><li>Microsoft reported (30 Jan HKT) 2QFY25 (June year-end) results: revenue was US$69.6bn, up 12% YoY (1QFY25: +16% YoY), 1% better than consensus, driven by a 3/2% beat in productivity and business process (PBP) / more personal computing (MPC) segment, while partly offset by a 1% short in Intelligent Cloud (IC) segment.</li><li>Net profit was up 10% YoY to US$24.1bn, 3% better than consensus, driven by better-than-expected operating efficiency gains.</li><li>Management noted that Azure AI services revenue generation was ahead of expectations, while non-AI cloud services was slightly lower than expectation due to go to market execution challenges, and the trend is likely to sustain in 2HFY25. </li></ul><p><em>Content is external broker report sourced from online content aggregator through publicly available sources and is displayed below for general informational purposes only. Refer full disclaimer below.</em></p>

Microsoft reported (30 Jan HKT) 2QFY25 (June year-end) results: revenue was US$69.6bn, up 12% YoY (1QFY25: +16% YoY), 1% better than consensus, driven by a 3/2% beat in productivity and business process (PBP) / more personal computing (MPC) segment, while partly offset by a 1% short in Intelligent Cloud (IC) segment.Net profit was up 10% YoY to US$24.1bn, 3% better than consensus, driven by better-than-expected operating efficiency gains.Management noted that Azure AI services revenue generation was ahead of expectations, while non-AI cloud services was slightly lower than expectation due to go to market execution challenges, and the trend is likely to sustain in 2HFY25. Content is external broker report sourced from online content aggregator through publicly available sources and is displayed below for general informational purposes only. Refer full disclaimer below.

Microsoft (MSFT US) - Cloud Revenue Growth and AI Related Monetization Remain Keys to Watch

Independent research on the U.S. markets, Baptista Research

Baptista Research

Independent research on the U.S. markets

Baptista Research is an independent financial research house focused on the U.S. markets. We provide equity research as well as credit research reports on the top-listed U.S. companies with most of our focus on technology, consumer goods and services, automobiles, industrials, oil and gas, pharma, and healthcare. Our research has served more than 3000 institutional investors including mutual funds, hedge funds, banks, family offices, and various buy-side firms. We operate a research subscription service where institutions, as well as retail investors, can have priority access to all our research. We also have a wide distribution of our research reports across some of the top global financial platforms. Apart from equity research and credit research, we also provide advisory services with respect to mergers & acquisitions (M&A), private equity/ venture capital fundraising, valuation reports, and investment management services for corporates.
Baptista Research is owned and managed by Ishan Majumdar, an ex-Venture Capitalist/ Investment Banker, a Chartered Accountant, and a Masters’ degree holder in Management from HEC Paris. Ishan has nearly a decade of experience in Mergers and Acquisitions, Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs), Venture Capital Investing, Corporate Strategy, and Valuation in front-office roles at the likes of BNP Paribas CIB, Credit Agricole CIB, Groupe Danone, and TIW Private Equity. He has worked on and closed multiple acquisition deals, leveraged buyouts, and start-up investment transactions.

<ul><li>Microsoft’s latest earnings report for its fiscal second quarter of 2025 reveals a compelling mix of strengths and challenges.</li><li>While the company demonstrated solid overall revenue and profit growth, a slowdown in its flagship cloud computing business, Azure, tempered investor enthusiasm.</li><li>The stock reacted negatively, slipping 5% in after-hours trading, reflecting concerns about whether Microsoft can maintain its momentum in an increasingly competitive AI and cloud landscape.</li></ul>

Microsoft’s latest earnings report for its fiscal second quarter of 2025 reveals a compelling mix of strengths and challenges.While the company demonstrated solid overall revenue and profit growth, a slowdown in its flagship cloud computing business, Azure, tempered investor enthusiasm.The stock reacted negatively, slipping 5% in after-hours trading, reflecting concerns about whether Microsoft can maintain its momentum in an increasingly competitive AI and cloud landscape.

Microsoft’s Cloud Growth Hits A Speed Bump Amidst AI Surge: A Turning Point For Investors?

<ul><li>Microsoft’s aggressive acquisition of nearly half a million Nvidia AI chips underscore the tech giant’s all-in commitment to artificial intelligence (AI).</li><li>As AI reshapes industries, Microsoft has found itself playing catch-up against Google, Amazon, and Meta, all of whom have already developed custom AI chips.</li><li>By investing heavily in Nvidia's cutting-edge Hopper GPUs, Microsoft has managed to build out a formidable AI infrastructure but at a significant cost.</li></ul>

Microsoft’s aggressive acquisition of nearly half a million Nvidia AI chips underscore the tech giant’s all-in commitment to artificial intelligence (AI).As AI reshapes industries, Microsoft has found itself playing catch-up against Google, Amazon, and Meta, all of whom have already developed custom AI chips.By investing heavily in Nvidia's cutting-edge Hopper GPUs, Microsoft has managed to build out a formidable AI infrastructure but at a significant cost.

Microsoft Is Betting Big on NVIDIA GPUs — But Will Custom Chips Save Its AI Ambitions?

Technical Analyst, Vermilion Research

Joe Jasper

Technical Analyst

Technical and Quantitative Research

Vermilion Research

Vermilion’s objective is to deliver timely, actionable, and unique technical research to professional investors through the application of our various technical indicators.

Our research strategists seek to highlight securities which we believe are at major inflection points, based on our various technical and quantitative indicators, and offer asymmetric risk/return profiles. Our unique research methodology, centered on relative strength, enables our strategists to deliver superior investment recommendations.

Our process begins by organizing the universe of actively traded stocks into discrete sectors, then into industry groups. We then apply our technical and quantitative tools to identify developing price trends. Once attractive trends are identified within a selected sector or group, we screen for individual stocks which we believe offer the best risk/reward profile. We provide a historical perspective that often reveals, through our long-term charts, how price patterns often repeat themselves over time.

Technical Analysis

<ul>
<li>Our outlook remains bullish and we see the market in the midst of a significant end-of-year rally that we have been expecting since mid-October.</li>
<li>We continue to expect support at 20-day MAs on $SPX and Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), while support at current levels or the 50-day MA is likely on the Russell 2000 (IWM).</li>
<li>Market dynamics continue to improve, giving us confidence that this bull run is likely to go at least another month into mid-January, and quite likely beyond.</li>
</ul>


Our outlook remains bullish and we see the market in the midst of a significant end-of-year rally that we have been expecting since mid-October.
We continue to expect support at 20-day MAs on $SPX and Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), while support at current levels or the 50-day MA is likely on the Russell 2000 (IWM).
Market dynamics continue to improve, giving us confidence that this bull run is likely to go at least another month into mid-January, and quite likely beyond.


Growth Leading This EOY Rally; Expect More Upside. PHLX Semis $SOXX With a Bullish 5-Month Reversal

United States

Microsoft Corporation operates as a software company. The Company offers applications, extra cloud storage, and advanced security solutions. Microsoft serves customers worldwide.

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Microsoft Corp (MSFT US)

Microsoft’s Cloud Growth Hits A Speed Bump Amidst AI Surge: A Turning Point For Investors?

Microsoft’s latest earnings report for its fiscal second quarter of 2025 reveals a compelling mix of strengths and challenges. While the company...

Baptista Research

Microsoft Is Betting Big on NVIDIA GPUs — But Will Custom Chips Save Its AI Ambitions?

Microsoft’s aggressive acquisition of nearly half a million Nvidia AI chips underscore the tech giant’s all-in commitment to artificial...

Baptista Research

Growth Leading This EOY Rally; Expect More Upside. PHLX Semis $SOXX With a Bullish 5-Month Reversal

Growth Leading This EOY Rally $MSFT $AAPL as Tech $XLK Breaks Out; Expect More Upside $ARKK $ARKW $ARKF $BITQ $WGMI. PHLX Semiconductor $SOXX With...

Vermilion Research

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