2026.4.29 US Stock Daily | Oil Spikes 7.6%, Google Up 7% and Meta Down 7% After Hours

WTI crude surged 7.6% to $107.52 in a single session — the biggest green candle of the year. Fundamentals stacked on top of geopolitics: the EIA weekly report showed an unexpected sharp drawdown in inventories, reigniting supply-tightness fears. On the geopolitical front, US-Iran rhetoric kept escalating — Trump said he’d continue blocking the Strait of Hormuz, Iran floated military options, and after the close Trump posted that both sides had been talking by phone. The market treats this back-and-forth as negotiation leverage, but on Polymarket the probability of normal Hormuz transit resuming by end of April is pinned at 0%, while the odds of WTI hitting 110 have climbed to 42%. Spot pricing is running hotter than the prediction markets.

With oil ripping like that, the tape barely moved. S&P 500 closed at 7,135.95, -0.04%; Nasdaq at 24,673.24, +0.04%; Dow at 48,861.81, down 0.57%. Energy XLE up 2.29% was the sole bright spot. Utilities XLU fell 1.23%, healthcare XLV dropped 0.70% — rate-sensitive sectors cracked first. The 10-year Treasury yield rose roughly 6bp to 4.42%, VIX climbed 5.5% to 18.81, TLT slid 0.78%. Flat on the surface, but repricing underneath.

The Fed held steady as expected. If oil keeps running, the rate-cut window keeps getting pushed back — CICC now sees the next cut potentially delayed to Q4. WSJ reported that Powell will stay on as a governor for a period after stepping down as chair, with Warsh taking over the chairmanship in May. That means more dispersed voices from the Fed during the transition, and the market’s reaction to any single hawkish or dovish signal will be diluted in the near term.

The real action was after hours. Google posted Q1 revenue of $109.9 billion, up 22% YoY, with EPS of $5.11 against a Street estimate of just $2.67 — nearly double the consensus. Cloud hit $20 billion, up 63% YoY; Gemini Enterprise MAU grew 40% QoQ; capex came in at $35.67 billion, slightly below expectations. Shares jumped 7.17% to $375 after hours. Amazon rose 2.76%, AMD gained 3.23%.

Microsoft reported revenue of $82.9 billion, up 18%, with Azure growth at 40% beating estimates. The stock initially popped 4% after hours then flipped red. The issue was cash flow: quarterly capex of $30.9 billion surged 84% YoY, and free cash flow declined 22% YoY. Meta dropped 7.00% after hours, falling from $669 to $622 — full earnings details are pending the complete PDF.

All three are pouring money into AI, but Google got the monetization flywheel spinning through ads plus cloud while keeping capex below expectations. Microsoft’s Azure growth looked good until you noticed the burn rate growing even faster — the market bought the growth, glanced at the margins, and reversed. Nasdaq futures rose nearly 1% after hours, propped up almost entirely by Google’s blowout quarter.

This earnings season is answering one question: who’s actually making money from the hundreds of billions being spent on AI. Google turned in a convincing answer. Microsoft’s answer is growth is fast but spending is faster. If oil breaks above 110 and holds, pushing the 10-year toward 4.6%, the “earnings can power through anything” thesis starts to wobble. Next up: Meta’s full earnings numbers, and whether Iran negotiates or escalates.