Microsoft shares extended their gains to six straight sessions through August 28, the stock's longest winning streak of 2026, as strong Azure growth and a new AI partnership eased earlier doubts about the company's AI spending. The stock has climbed 30% in the past month alone.
Microsoft shares climbed 30% in the past month, notching a sixth straight session of gains on Friday that marked the company's longest winning streak since Oct. 28, 2025, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Shares rose 6.7% over that six-session run.
The rally follows a sharp reversal from June, when the stock had tumbled to around $349, a drop of roughly 25% from prior highs, as investors grew impatient with Microsoft's AI infrastructure spending.
Azure crosses $100 billion as backlog hits a record
On July 30, Microsoft reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $90 billion, up 18% year-over-year. Azure, the company's cloud platform, grew 43% in the quarter and crossed $100 billion in annual revenue for the first time, while the commercial backlog hit a record $678 billion. Shares surged 15.51% on July 30, the largest single-day percentage gain in the company's history, adding approximately $450 billion to its market capitalization in one session.
A Saudi AI partnership adds fresh momentum
The streak gained a new catalyst on August 27, when Microsoft announced a multi-year AI partnership with HUMAIN, a Saudi Arabian entity focused on AI development. The deal extends Azure Foundry and Microsoft 365 Copilot to support Arabic-language models. Shares rose 1.75% that day, then gained another 1.68% on August 28. That left the stock trading in the $513 to $514 range, a recovery of nearly 50% from the June low.
Analysts point to a broader software payoff
D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria told MarketWatch that Anthropic's expanded partnership with Salesforce, dubbed "Claudeforce," has cast a halo over Microsoft's stock as well. The deal, he said, has helped investors realize that Microsoft is well positioned for AI orchestration and harnesses — coordinating AI models and giving them access to existing enterprise software.
StoneX analyst Yi Fu Lee said Microsoft's run is also being bolstered by growing confidence that the company can monetize AI beyond the cloud, through products like Copilot and the GitHub coding assistant. According to Lee: "Said simply, demand across AI infrastructure continues to outstrip available supply." Strong results from Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services reinforced that reading, he added, pointing to broadly healthy enterprise cloud demand.
Sources: MarketWatch, Crypto Briefing
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