Amazon's stock sank on Thursday afternoon, weighed down by mixed guidance and AI competition, though the company beat Q2 earnings expectations.

With headcount inching up to 1.55 million, CEO Andy Jassy said "AI progress across the board continues to improve our customer experiences, speed of innovation, operational efficiency, and business growth,

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley voted with Democrats to advance legislation to ban members of Congress from owning individual stocks.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley on Thursday dismissed a dustup with President Donald Trump over a stock trading bill to a misunderstanding, saying he’d spoken with the president in the hours after he dressed him down as a “second-tier senator” and the pair had a good conversation.

Microsoft stock surged on better-than-expected financial results for its latest quarter and strong guidance, putting the tech giant on track to hit a $4 trillion market cap. The beat was driven in part by double-digit revenue growth in the tech firm’s closely watched Azure cloud business.

Meta Platforms also reported earnings after Wednesday’s close. Coming into the earnings, the option market had priced the straddle at 42 points, or 6% of the stock price. That straddle price was cheaper than six of the past 10 post-earnings moves by Meta — meaning that the odds were theoretically slightly in favor of buying the straddle.

Whether Apple can say enough on AI or tariffs to settle some burning issues remains an open question heading into Thursday’s earnings report.