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Market indices clearly looked to be hedging against bad news in the regular trading session today — either from the plethora of earnings reports hitting the tape after the closing bell or perhaps from the Fed tomorrow, where suddenly investors are unsure how high the next interest rate hike is going to be. The Dow was -0.71% on the day, -228 points, whereas the Nasdaq fell -1.87%, -220 points. Splitting the difference was the S&P 500, -1.15% on the day, while the small-cap Russell 2000 beat the field, only dropping -0.69%.

We’ve seen in the fairly recent past that market participants like to try and “spring-load” better-than-expected news, which again we’d either expect from a basket of big-name Q2 reports or tomorrow’s interest rate decision, by selling into big news events. Because otherwise, we were seeing a pretty happy little extended rally over the previous couple of weeks.

There was also some wet-blanket data out today, with Consumer Confidence slipping to its lowest level since winter of 2021: 95.7 versus an expected 97.0, and well off the 98.4 posted in June. We also saw New Home Sales in June fall way off their pace, -8.1% month over month to 590K, from an expected 660K. A lower profit outlook at Walmart (WMT - Free Report) yesterday and a coming 10% layoff of Shopify (SHOP - Free Report) workforce round out the negative news — which may help the Fed take the boot off the throat of the economy somewhat.

Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) posted its first earnings miss since Q3 of 2016 after today’s close, with fiscal Q4 earnings of $2.23 per share six cents shy of the Zacks consensus on revenues amounting to $51.87 billion in the quarter, below the $52.31 billion analysts were looking for. Its cloud-based business shed some of its considerable growth in the quarter, with Azure growing 40%, lower than the 45% analysts had earmarked.

The global software major cited foreign exchange headwinds for the lighter performance in the quarter, which Microsoft had warned about earlier but still couldn’t muster on lowered expectations. Also, extended production shutdowns in China mid-quarter assisted the misses. The company also sees PC demand falling. Nevertheless, Microsoft shares are only down -1% in late trading on the news, -24.7% year to date.

Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) also came up short on both top and bottom Q2 results this afternoon, with earnings of $1.21 per share six cents shy of the Zacks consensus. Revenues, including traffic acquisition costs (TAC) which the company does not calculate in its headline, came in at $57.47 billion, slightly below the $57.55 billion expected ($69.69 billion was reported on the Alphabet press release).

Foreign exchange headwinds were also blamed for the weakness in the quarter, accounting for -3.7% on the top line. CFO Ruth Porat expects this headwind will only get worse in Q3. Alphabet’s cloud business brought in $6.3 billion, below the $6.4 billion estimate, while YouTube sales brought in $7.34 billion versus the $7.5 billion expected. Travel and retail helped push growth in the quarter, but uncertainty in the global marketplace is making the company cautious in their outlook.

Texas Instruments (TXN - Free Report), on the other hand, demonstrated this afternoon that not all is weakness in the chip space: it outperformed on both top and bottom lines in its Q2 report Tuesday, with $2.45 per share in earnings on $5.21 billion in sales impressively surpassing the $2.07 per share and $4.53 billion in revenues expected. The company also bolstered Q3 guidance for both top and bottom lines. Shares are up +2.3% in late trading.

Chipotle (CMG - Free Report) shares have leaped +8% in the after-hours session, even as top-line results came in slightly under expectations. Earnings of $9.30 per share tidily beat the $9.03 expected, while $2.21 billion in sales was shy of the $2.24 billion in the Zacks consensus. Comps, while technically beneath estimates, were still up a robust +10.1% on successful price hikes. Digital sales now make up 39% of all sales at Chipotle stores.

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