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Microsoft (MSFT) is set to report fiscal fourth-quarter earnings after the closing bell on July 30, with investors likely to be watching for cloud segment growth and updates on the company's artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives.

The tech giant is projected to report revenue of $64.38 billion, according to estimates compiled by Visible Alpha, representing a 14.6% rise over the year-ago period. Net income is expected to come in at $21.88 billion, or $2.93 per share, a 9.3% increase from the final quarter of fiscal 2023.

Investors will likely be watching for sustained revenue growth in Microsoft's cloud platform, Azure, which fueled the tech giant's earnings beats in previous quarters.

Azure has benefited from the AI boom as customers train and run AI workloads using the cloud platform. The cloud business has helped support Microsoft's increased capital spending as big tech invests in AI.

Goldman Sachs analysts expect cloud revenue of $37.2 billion, representing growth from both the quarter prior and the year-ago period.

The analysts said that they "think share gains in Azure and leadership in [generative artificial intelligence] could continue to set Microsoft on a separate trajectory as long as we are in the ‘Infrastructure’ build phase of the Gen-AI cycle."

Microsoft's earnings report and call will likely be focused on the company's position in the evolving AI marketplace. The tech giant has established itself as an early AI leader through its ongoing partnership with OpenAI.

The company could provide updates about its Windows PCs designed for AI workloads and how the new devices are expected to affect Microsoft's computing business.

Microsoft shares were up 0.3% at just above $444 on Tuesday afternoon, contributing to the stock's roughly 18% year-to-date gain.

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President Bola Tinubu’s media aide, Olusegun Dadahas reacted to Nigerians digging up old tweets of him calling for protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

Recall that Dada had earlier taken to his X account to warn that those planning to burn the country down would be met with strong resistance from the majority that placed President Bola Tinubu in power.

The strong warning comes at a time when some Nigerians are planning a nationwide protest against economic hardship and harsh government policies driven by the fuel subsidy removal and the floating of the naira.

Dada’s post has elicited various reactions, with some netizens sharing old posts of the media aide calling for protests during Jonathan’s regime.

Serving a rejoinder to his earlier post, the aide stated that he didn’t say people shouldn’t protest, however, ‘burning the country’ will be resisted.

He also said that his old tweets should teach people that chest-thumping on social media cannot bring them the leaders they want.

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Potential buyers fed up with high prices sat out of the housing market in June, but the tide could soon be turning in their favor.

Existing home sales were down 5.4% from both the prior month and the same time last year, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released Tuesday. Sales were lower than economists expected as prices hit record highs for the second month.

"Sales may be close to rock bottom as they approach Housing Bubble crash levels," said Robert Frick, Navy Federal Credit Union corporate economist. "That’s cold comfort for Americans looking to become homeowners, especially as existing home prices hit a new high."

Despite the dour situation last month, the outlook for buyers is improving.

There were 1.32 million units of single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, an increase of 3.1% from May. That marked a vast improvement—more than 23% higher—from the same time last year, when buyers were competing for the historically small number of homes for sale.

“We're seeing a slow shift from a seller's market to a buyer's market," said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun in a statement. "Homes are sitting on the market a bit longer, and sellers are receiving fewer offers."

High interest rates have discouraged sellers from listing homes, increasing competition among buyers and driving up prices. However, a growing number of homes on the market could change that.

Buyers have protested high prices by sitting out of the market, letting available homes pile up to the highest level since May 2020 and leading sellers to cut their asking prices.

“Despite more homes being listed for sale, actual home sales have not picked up," wrote Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae chief economist, in a report this week. "We continue to expect home price growth on a national level to decelerate—but remain positive—over the near term."

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The Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi has given the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Communication and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, 72 hours to pay N5bn damages for defamation.

Obi also demanded that Onanuga tender a public apology published in four national newspapers over the widespread defamation and libel or face legal action.

The former Anambra State Governor demanded that Mr Onanuga retract his wild allegation, linking him to the planned mass protest scheduled for August.

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Nearly eight million people with federal student loans have found themselves in a familiar place: waiting for courts to decide their financial future. 

Last week, the Department of Education put everyone enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan into forbearance—pausing all payments and interest—after a federal appeals court blocked the department from implementing the plan. The forbearance gives some financial relief to borrowers while they wait for courts to decide the fate of the proposed changes and the SAVE plan as a whole. 

The order by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals was a victory for Missouri and other states that had sued the administration of President Joe Biden to stop the SAVE plan.

The plan was created in 2023 and lets people repay their student loans while making lower payments than older plans. It was one of several legal challenges against the plan by Republican state attorneys general, who argued the administration overstepped its constitutional authority when it offered borrowers more generous repayment terms.

The latest legal developments have once again created uncertainty and financial chaos for borrowers who had entered repayment plans based on information from the department and the companies that service student loans on behalf of the government. Some vented their frustration on social media. 

“I made years-long calculated decisions based on the data and loan rules,” one borrower posted on a Reddit forum devoted to discussing student loans. “This is insane.” 

Like older income-driven repayment plans, payments on the SAVE plan are based on how much income the borrower makes, not how much they owe, and borrowers who make payments for 20 to 25 years have any remaining debt forgiven—payments are set at 10% of borrowers’ disposable income.

The department launched SAVE last year after the Supreme Court blocked President Joe Biden’s plan to offer up to $20,000 of forgiveness to each federal student loan borrower. It replaced the REPAYE income-driven plan, and borrowers can make lower payments while still making progress towards forgiveness, because of how it calculates disposable income. The plan also stops interest building up on loans for borrowers who make their income-based payments.The department had planned a series of changes to take effect in July that would make the plan a better deal for borrowers, including reducing payments to 5% of disposable income for undergraduate borrowers from 10%, forgiving debt after 10 years of payments instead of 20 for borrowers with lower initial balances. 

The forbearance itself is a double-edged sword because borrowers enrolled in SAVE won’t make progress toward eventually having their loan forgiveness during the payment pause, the department said on its website. That goes for borrowers in SAVE who were on track to have their loans forgiven after 10 years of payments under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program for government and nonprofit workers.

That change affects borrowers who were automatically transferred onto the SAVE plan from REPAYE, some of whom had been making payments for years and were close to having their loans forgiven. One borrower on Reddit said they had paid for nearly 20 years and were months away from forgiveness.“It feels like my life keeps having these moments where I almost make it to some kind of mountain top and then just get kicked back to the bottom,” the borrower posted on Reddit. 

Another borrower said they were a medical student nearing graduation and had been looking forward to having manageable monthly payments under the SAVE plan instead of the $1,800 to $2,200 per month they would have paid under older plans.Others said they had consolidated their loans to get onto the SAVE plan, an action that can result in thousands of dollars of interest being capitalized and added to the balance of a loan. Some switched from other repayment plans, or were moved to the SAVE plan involuntarily because the REPAYE plan was discontinued.

“So I switched to SAVE plan to make payments more affordable and now I’m forced into forbearance that won’t count for PSLF, which I need to pay off my loans,” one borrower posted on X. “How is this fair?”

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United Parcel Service (UPS) customers are trading down, another signal from the second-quarter earnings season about the search for value options across the U.S. economy.

"We saw customers trade down between services," the shipping giant's new CFO Brian Dykes said on a conference call Tuesday, a transcript of which was provided by AlphaSense. "Specifically, we saw customers shift from air to ground and from ground to SurePost."

SurePost is the company's "budget" business-to-consumer service. Newer e-commerce customers in particular were "highly leveraging" SurePost, executives said on the call.

Shares of UPS were sinking Tuesday after the company reported second-quarter profits that fell year-over-year and missed analysts' estimates while also narrowing its sales outlook. UPS "revenues fell in the U.S. despite an e-commerce driven return to growth in volumes, indicating that pricing pressures remain a headwind to top-line expansion," CFRA analysts wrote Tuesday.

FedEx (FDX) stock also moved lower Tuesday.

A range of companies have highlighted both consumer and corporate customers' search for lower-price options for goods and services in recent quarterly reports. Coca-Cola (KO) executives also noted a "slightly greater" consumer focus on value in its at-home market during its own earnings conference call earlier today.

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