Nasdaq 100: Hyperscaler Earnings Decide the PullbackUS Tech 100 CashIG:NASDAQbullish_bearishThe Nasdaq 100 pullback runs into the year's heaviest capex week. AI hyperscale capex has roughly doubled year over year at Alphabet and Microsoft and is up about 70% at Amazon. Four of the five largest AI capEx hyperscalers have now printed negative free cash flow, and the market has already shown what it does with that: Meta reported last Wednesday and fell 7% the next session. Unless this week's reports show capex moderating and cash flow stabilizing, I'm targeting roughly 27,800 on the Nasdaq 100. Alphabet and Microsoft report Wednesday, 28 October, after the close. Amazon reports Thursday, 29 October, after the close. More importantly, we have started to see these companies go negative in free cash flow. Both META and GOOG/GOOGL for the first time in their publicly listed history: META reported negative free cash flow of approximately -$2.12 billion: GOOG/GOOGL reported negative free cash flow of approximately -$5.9 billion So is Negative Free Cash Flow going to be a new norm? What to watch this Wednesday? Alphabet (GOOG/GOOGL): The capex guide is the real story Capex year to date was $80.6 billion at the end of June. The $195 billion to $205 billion full-year range leaves $114 billion to $124 billion for the second half, about $57 billion to $62 billion a quarter. A Q3 print near $55 billion to $60 billion is already in the plan. The reaction hinges on whether the range moves again and on any first detail about 2027, which management has already said will "increase significantly." Microsoft (MSFT): Demand exceeds available supply Management has said for several quarters that demand exceeds available supply. In the June quarter it added another gigawatt of capacity and said dock-to-live times for new GPUs fell nearly 50% over the fiscal year. The guide is Azure growth of about 45% in constant currency and capex of over $50 billion including finance leases, so cash capex on the cash-flow statement will print lower than $50 billion. If Azure lands at or above 45% while capex lands as guided, the constraint is being relieved and monetized at the same time. Azure below 45% with capex as guided is the combination the market will not forgive at this valuation. Amazon (AMZN): Chips and AI run rates In July the chips business, Trainium and Graviton, passed a $25 billion annual revenue run rate, and AI revenue separately passed $25 billion, both growing triple digits. Management said revenue commitments for its chips nearly tripled quarter over quarter and described multi-year, multi-gigawatt Trainium commitments from Anthropic and OpenAI. These contracts are what turn capex into cash, so an update on delivery against them matters as much as the AWS growth rate. Amazon also lifted its 2026 cash capex plan to about $220 billion, and free cash flow was already -$8.8 billion in Q2. The trade Capex rises this week. Will Azure, Google Cloud and AWS grow fast enough to carry it? If any of the three shows capex up and cloud growth flat, I expect the index to slide further.