Microsoft stock suffers worst month since 2000
Published in Business News
Microsoft’s share price fell by 19% in June, marking the company’s worst month on Wall Street in almost 26 years.
The Redmond-based tech giant lost $650 billion in market value last month, ending a fiscal year that’s turned rough for the company. The share price closed on Tuesday at $373.02, a long way down from its record high of roughly $542.07 on Oct. 28.
As Microsoft and the rest of the tech industry fight to solidify their places in the artificial intelligence boom, investors have grown anxious over exorbitant spending and an unclear timetable for a return on investment.
The stock’s drop in June was the worst since December 2000, when the share price fell 23.4% in one month. June’s performance was also worse than a particularly bad month leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, when Microsoft’s share price fell 16.5% in February 2008.
The company’s bad stretch on Wall Street comes at a time when it’s bringing in more money than ever. During the first nine months of its 2026 fiscal year, from July 2025 through March, Microsoft reported more than $241 billion in revenue with almost $98 billion in profit.
Microsoft isn’t the only tech company that suffered a bruising June. Share prices for other Big Tech members, including Amazon, NVIDIA, Meta and Google parent Alphabet, all slid last month. However, Microsoft’s drop outpaced the rest.
Microsoft, through its early investments and partnerships with AI powerhouse OpenAI, helped kick off the AI race. But there’s some worry that the technology could eat into the industry’s software sales, potentially endangering a significant portion of Microsoft’s business.
What Wall Street has responded to most strongly is the company’s capital expenditure estimates for the rest of the year.
Microsoft’s investments into AI infrastructure like computer chips and data centers rose sharply to $88 billion during the company’s 2025 fiscal year, which ended last year in June. Those capital expenditures have only risen and the company expects to spend about $190 billion this calendar year.
At the same time, Microsoft has reported strong cloud computing revenue but the modest year-over-year growth hasn’t pleased investors. During an earnings call earlier this year, the company reported slower growth in its Azure cloud computing division. Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood attributed this to supply constraints as more high-tech computer chips were diverted to research and development.
As Microsoft turns the page to its new fiscal year, which began Wednesday, the company is expected to conduct a new round of layoffs.
Business Insider first reported Tuesday that cuts to Microsoft’s Xbox gaming division as well as the company’s sales and consulting teams would affect thousands of employees, or roughly 2.5% of the 220,000-person workforce. The news added to earlier reports from June that sweeping layoffs were coming for Xbox after new leadership planned a turnaround for the division.
Microsoft declined to comment on the report.
The company had widespread layoffs last summer, when it let go of about 15,000 employees across multiple waves of cuts. Recently the company took an alternative approach to managing its head count toward the end of the 2026 fiscal year by offering voluntary retirements to 8,750 eligible employees.
Hood estimated earlier this year during an earnings call that the buyouts will cost Microsoft roughly $900 million, a fraction of Microsoft’s quarterly profit, which was $31.8 billion during the first three months of the year.
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