Call it mega-cap week, with an asterisk. Meta reports first, on Wednesday, October 21 after the close. Microsoft and Alphabet follow a week later, on Wednesday, October 28, also after the close. Together the three prints form the spine of the whole season, because they answer the question every other stock is being priced on: is the AI spending wave producing revenue at anything like the rate it consumes cash? All three dates sit in the Q3 2026 earnings calendar.

Meta goes first: Wednesday, October 21

Meta confirmed its date with an October 12 announcement, which makes it the earliest of the three to commit. Consensus expects $6.76 a share on $63.30 billion of revenue. The EPS line is almost a formality; Meta's print is a referendum on spending. Investors want advertising growth to keep outrunning the Reality Labs losses and the AI infrastructure bill, and they want the capex guide to sound like a plan rather than an appetite. Any quarter where ad revenue accelerates while spending guides flat is a quarter the stock forgives everything else.

Microsoft and Alphabet: Wednesday, October 28

Microsoft confirmed October 28 in an October 7 release; it is the company's fiscal first quarter. The whole print reduces to one number and one sentence: Azure growth, and what management says about the capacity constraints behind it. Alphabet, expected the same evening, carries the mirror-image question. Search revenue funds everything, Cloud is the growth story, and the market wants proof that AI answers are expanding the pie rather than repricing it.

  • Azure growth rate. Deceleration is the bear case for the entire AI trade, not just for Microsoft.
  • Capex guidance. All three companies guide spending here; the combined number effectively sets the demand outlook for Nvidia's November print.
  • Cloud margins. Growth bought with discounting reads very differently from growth at holding margins.
  • Alphabet's Search line. Still the largest single profit pool in the group, and the one AI is supposed to disrupt.

The week around them is the densest of the season: one preview counts roughly 44 percent of the index's market value reporting between October 26 and October 30. If the season has a hinge, this is it. The Apple and Amazon preview covers the other half of that week and the Monday after.

The insider angle on mega-cap week

Mega-cap insider filings are a masterclass in ignoring noise. Executives at all three companies sell on schedules set months ahead, through 10b5-1 plans, in amounts that generate alarming headlines and zero information. Our explainer on separating real buys from 10b5-1 sales exists for exactly this week. The signal, if any comes, is an open-market purchase after the print, especially from a CFO or a director who has not bought in years.

Congressional disclosures are the slow echo of mega-cap week. These are the most held, most traded names in STOCK Act filings, and trades made during this stretch surface through December. Tracking them by hand is miserable; InsiderPulse Pro exists so the filings come to you. Start from the season hub if you are reading the previews in order.