California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a new tax extending state sales tax to digital prewritten software purchases, aiming to level the playing field between online and physical store sales. The tax, set to take effect January 1, 2027 pending legislative approval, could generate $450 million for the state and $560 million for local budgets in its first year. This move impacts major software companies like Microsoft and Salesforce amid ongoing challenges in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) sector. Despite concerns, HSBC predicts software will benefit from AI advancements rather than suffer from the tax changes.
In Q2 2026, top contributors to growth included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Alphabet, United Rentals, Apple, and Visa. Alphabet’s Google Search and Cloud segments showed robust revenue growth of 19% and 63%, respectively, boosting operating i...
Microsoft is instructing its sales team to highlight the efficiency and cost advantages of its own AI models compared to competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. This shift comes as Microsoft replaces some third-party AI models in apps like Wo...
The SPDR NYSE Technology ETF (XNTK) has significantly outperformed the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) over the past year, returning 51.65% compared to QQQ's 28.43%. XNTK uses an equal-weight approach focusing solely on about 35 tech leaders, capturing broad...
Jim Cramer cautioned that the recent rally in Big Tech stocks like Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon might be more about investor optimism than real improvements in their business fundamentals. Despite positive news such as Warren Buffett's endor...
Microsoft fixed a major security vulnerability in the remastered Age of Empires II that could let hackers take control of a victim's computer by sending a malicious game invite. The flaw, discovered with AI assistance, allowed remote code execution i...
