Chipotle and Microsoft Were Crushing the Market—What Happened?

1 month ago 19

Trey Thoelcke

Mon, July 6, 2026 astatine 8:15 AM CDT 3 min read

Quick Read

MSFT turned $1,000 into $8,600 implicit a decade, tripling the S&P 500's return, portion CMG grew to $4,500 earlier caller stumbles.
Both stocks cratered implicit the past year, with MSFT falling 20% connected AI capex concerns and CMG dropping 38% arsenic comparable income went negative.
Microsoft's bull lawsuit rests connected a $627 cardinal commercialized backlog converting to nett arsenic AI capex normalizes, portion Boatwright indispensable reconstruct Chipotle's lawsuit traffic.
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Two Very Different Decades

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE:CMG) some rewarded semipermanent holders done the 2010s, but their caller chapters person diverged sharply.

A top-down, high-contrast creation focusing connected the 'Buy' determination constituent taps into the science of investment, making the spectator consciousness similar they are the 1 making the prime betwixt tech and dining.

Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft pivoted from a Windows and Office licensing store into a cloud-and-AI level anchored by Azure, which crossed $75 cardinal successful FY2025 revenue, up 34%. A restructured OpenAI concern near Microsoft with a astir 27% involvement valued adjacent $135 cardinal and an AI concern moving astatine a $37 cardinal annualized gross tally rate, up 123% twelvemonth implicit year. Acquisitions of LinkedIn, GitHub, and Activision Blizzard reshaped the mix.

Chipotle's trajectory is much complicated. Brian Niccol's turnaround introduced Chipotlanes, integer ordering, and a loyalty program, past a 50-for-1 divided successful June 2024 followed his exit to Starbucks. New CEO Scott Boatwright inherited a marque that conscionable posted its archetypal afloat twelvemonth of antagonistic comparable sales, with FY2025 comps sliding and Q4 transactions down 3.2%.

What $1,000 Actually Did

Using split-adjusted full returns done the astir caller close, present is what a $1,000 concern successful either banal became implicit the past decade, compared to the S&P 500 gain:

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A $1,000 involvement successful Microsoft a decennary agone outpaced the index, astir tripling the S&P's return. Chipotle besides bushed the marketplace implicit 10 years, but astir the full pb was banked earlier 2022. Both stocks person lagged severely successful the past year, with Microsoft caught successful an AI capex hangover (Q3 FY26 capex deed $30.88 billion, up 84.39%) and Chipotle punished for declining traffic.