Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action, news, and analysis.

Good afternoon, today is Thursday, January 29th, and I'm your host, Kim Kahn. Our top story is so far. Software struggles are getting hardcore.

The sector is selling off sharply, taking tech and the broader

market down with it. The iShare's expanded tech software ETF, ticker symbol IGV, is down

more than 5%, a drop we haven't seen since Tariff Liberation Day. That's dragged down the NASDAQ,

while Bitcoin, gold, and silver also saw simultaneous selling. All those asset classes are now off

their lows, though.

At the cold face of the software slump is Microsoft, which you heard on Wall Street Breakfast

was sinking despite solid, if unspectacular, quarterly results. Selling is ramped up through the

session, with the stock off about 12%. On track for the seventh worst decline in its history.

Today's plunge has wiped out nearly

$400 billion in Microsoft's market cap. If it holds, it would be the second largest single-day

loss for a U.S. company behind last January's Nvidia drop when a 17% slide erased nearly

$600 billion. Evercore analyst Kirk Materne says the debate is no longer about demand,

it is about capacity, timing,

and perhaps allocation. While Azure growth at these levels remains impressive and continues

to suggest market share gains, CAPEX rose 66% year over year, and investors are increasingly

looking for clearer evidence that this elevated investment is translating into incremental

Azure acceleration, he added.

The real trigger, though, may have been serviced now, down more than 10% despite strong results.

Analysts noted that 21.5% subscription revenue growth did not quite represent acceleration,

but were broadly positive. Citizens reiterated its market outperform rating, pointing to revenue growth,

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