Broadcom, Meta, Microsoft stuck near breakeven for 2026

This year, AI stocks as a class have had another solid run, but Broadcom, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft have been left behind. Broadcom is down roughly 30% from its spring high and trading near break-even, even though it helped Alphabet develop Tensor Processing Units and counts Alphabet and Anthropic as major purchasers, and despite expectations that AI chip revenue will double in fiscal 2027 and double again to $230 billion in fiscal 2028.

Meta's case is different in shape: its stock is in the midst of a rally after steep drops and rebounds, and its AI investments have shown up in results, with last quarter's 14% increase in ad impressions and 12% rise in ad prices. The new Muse AI agent — which can make purchases and appointments and design travel — is positioned as the answer to investor concerns about massive AI infrastructure spending, with monetization likely to come largely through processing and affiliate fees.

Microsoft's shares were caught in the early-year software-as-a-service sell-off but rallied after its fiscal Q4 earnings report at the end of July, then went sideways from early August. Azure revenue climbed 43% year over year last quarter, its 12th consecutive quarter of 30% or more growth, while Microsoft 365 Copilot seats passed 30 million. The question is whether these three can convert their operating momentum into stock catalysts — and for each, that depends on quite different things: compute capacity commitments for Broadcom, user growth and monetization for Meta's agent, and enterprise uptake and cloud diversification for Microsoft.