1. Today's Market: The Fed Held Rates With Two Dissents for a Hike, and All Three Indexes Edged Higher
Unit: %, single-day change on October 28; all three readings are positive, so the zero line sits at the left edge and every bar runs right on one shared scale. The S&P 500 reads +0.28%, the Nasdaq +0.27% and the Dow +0.19%.
The Fed kept rates at 3.75%–4.00% on a 10 to 2 vote, and both dissents wanted a hike; the 10-year Treasury yield rose to about 5.04%. The three indexes still edged higher together, the S&P 500 closing at 7,744.20, the Nasdaq at 26,549.85 and the Dow at 52,475.10, just 0.09 percentage points apart.
The indexes barely separated, so the split that day was between stocks. In one software infrastructure set, the stock that rose most and the stock that fell most finished 16.48 percentage points apart, and after the close two large technology companies reported results that went in opposite directions. Closing prices do not include after-hours moves, so the two belong in separate columns.
2. Stock in Focus: Software Infrastructure Split Three Up and Three Down, and Oracle Rose Most
Unit: %. These six stocks are grouped by hand as large-cap software infrastructure peers rather than by industry field; the set spans positive and negative, so a zero line is drawn and all six share one scale. Oracle sits at one end on +10.58% and Fortinet at the other on −5.90%.
The point of this session is a wide split inside one sector, with the top stock moving for reasons of its own. Two averages have to be kept apart: these six averaged +1.98%, while the software infrastructure sector as a whole averaged +3.40% on the day, so the denominators differ and Oracle's 7.18 percentage points of excess is measured against the sector average. It closed at $144.34, adding about $41.8B to a $436.4B market value on volume 2.46 times its average. What drove it was the investor day: the company held its FY2030 revenue target of $225B, and said capital spending peaks in FY2029 before falling, with free cash flow returning to about $30B. ⚠ These are long-term financial targets, not quarterly results, and the quarterly report comes in December. Alongside it, SK hynix rose 13.30% after third-quarter revenue topped KRW 104.6 trillion for the first time, with a record operating margin of 79.7%.
Five Dimensions: Peer Rank Full, and Valuation Heat Weakest at 8
Unit: 0 to 100, with 0 at the centre and 100 at the rim, and all five axes on one scale. Peer rank reads 100, relative strength 86, volatility control 49 and trend position 18, and the weakest is valuation heat at 8.
The pair worth reading together is one high and one low: relative strength at 86, trend position at only 18. Relative strength matches the session itself: Oracle beat the sector average by 7.18 percentage points, and 50 plus five times 7.18 comes to exactly 85.9. Trend position at 18 matches a price sitting at 17.9% of its 52-week range. One measures today and the other measures the year, so the two do not contradict each other; together they say this gain started from the bottom of a one-year range. When reading a big one-day move, check where in its range the stock started before reading how far it went.
3. What to Watch Tonight: Amazon, and Whether AWS Accelerates for a Fifth Quarter
At 12:30|Third-quarter GDP first estimate, September PCE prices and weekly jobless claims An hour before the U.S. market opens; the PCE reading is the first new inflation data since the Fed's October 28 decision
After the close at 20:00|Amazon (AMZN) third-quarter earnings The call is at 21:00; the company's own third-quarter revenue guidance is $197B to $202B, up 9% to 12% year on year
Also after the close|Intel (INTC) and Coinbase (COIN) third-quarter earnings Intel for foundry and data centres, Coinbase as the crypto-linked stock
Still to come on Friday The third-quarter employment cost index at 12:30 and the October Chicago PMI at 13:45; Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) report before the open
Unit: %, year-on-year growth in AWS segment revenue by calendar quarter, taken from the company's quarterly reports; all four bars are drawn from zero on one shared scale. The readings are 20.2% for 25Q3, 23.6% for 25Q4, 28.4% for 26Q1 and 36.8% for 26Q2.
Four quarters of acceleration, 16.6 percentage points in all AWS posted a 39.4% segment operating margin in the same quarter, adding capacity while holding margin, and that combination is what tonight tests
Why AWS rather than total revenue Group revenue grew 19.6% last quarter, flattened by the size of retail; online stores were the largest line at $70.4B growing 14.6%, while AWS was $42.2B growing 36.8%, 22.2 percentage points apart. The business-line split and the three reporting segments use different bases, but AWS stands alone in both, which makes it the only line in the company that can be compared directly with cloud peers
⚠ Revenue guidance is not a result, and capital spending is the other half of tonight Capital spending was $54.2B last quarter and $173B over four quarters, almost all of it on compute. Peers have just delivered cloud beating with spending below estimates, and whether Amazon repeats that combination will price the AI supply chain more than the revenue figure itself
4. Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Oracle rose 10.58%. Was that the sector or the company?
A: Mostly the company. The software infrastructure sector as a whole averaged +3.40% on the day, so the backdrop helped, but these six hand-picked stocks averaged only +1.98% and split three up and three down, with Fortinet falling 5.90% and the two ends 16.48 percentage points apart. Oracle ran 7.18 percentage points beyond the sector average, and that stretch matches the investor-day targets. To judge whether a stock is following its sector or moving on its own, first check whose average you are quoting. This time the set's average was lower than the sector's, so the two denominators give two different impressions.
Q: How should free cash flow going from about $24B burned to about $30B positive be read?
A: Free cash flow is the cash a company takes in minus the capital spending needed to maintain and expand it, and what remains is money it can actually deploy. Oracle says it burns about $24B in FY2026 and returns to about $30B positive in FY2029, a swing of about $54B, which depends on capital spending peaking first and then falling. So a company like this has to be read as two separate lines: revenue growth is one, and cash turning positive is the other. The $225B revenue target answers the first question, and when capital spending peaks answers the second.
Q: Both companies spent less than expected. Why did one rise after hours and the other fall?
A: Microsoft's quarterly revenue of $92.28B beat expectations and Azure grew 48%, and the stock was briefly up more than 2% after hours. Google Cloud revenue was $30.7B, up 103%, but the company as a whole missed on both revenue and earnings for the first time in nearly four years, and the stock was briefly down more than 8%. Capital spending was $45.2B against roughly $50.7B expected at Microsoft and $51.36B against roughly $55.2B at Alphabet, the same direction for both. Spending below estimates on its own does not tell you the after-hours direction; read it together with whether revenue and earnings hit their marks, and the same applies to Amazon tonight. Both moves were after hours and closing prices exclude them: Microsoft closed at $531.01, down 0.06%, and Alphabet at $324.89, up 1.34%.
The data in this article is as of the October 28 US close and all times are UTC; guidance and expectations are company or market statements, not published figures.
Disclaimer: This article is compiled and written by the MEXC RealStocks team. The data in this article is based on the closing of the US stock market on October 28, 2026. The content is a compilation of public market information, and individual stocks are publicly discussed targets, which do not represent the recommendation or opinion of MEXC and do not constitute any investment advice. More US stock content: @MEXC | @Alpha_MEXC | @MEXC_Research