The big money is not in the individual fluctuations, but in the main movements. That is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend.

Jesse Livermore – 1923

Here we go again. Yesterday’s financial headlines screamed, “Amazon AWS Quarterly Growth Slows, Sparking Market Concerns,” and immediately, a parade of so-called “experts” began pontificating on television about market saturation, intensified competition, and shrinking corporate IT budgets… It’s enough to make you fall asleep 😴. Retail investors are watching a pre-scripted stage play, with actors emoting on cue, while the audience follows along—getting tense, fearful, and then hastily making buy or sell decisions. It’s the same show, different day. Aren’t you tired of it? 🤦 The most absurd part is that by the time this “news” reaches you, the real institutional players may have already positioned themselves days, or even weeks, ago, based on the subtle clues on the price chart. What you’re reading is nothing more than the breadcrumbs they left for you after they’ve finished their feast. 🤯

The “Official Story” (Fundamental Criticism)

Wall Street’s greatest talent is storytelling. The “official story” they want you to believe usually goes something like this:

The cloud computing market is, without a doubt, the most critical technology race of the next decade. According to Gartner, worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow from $591.8 billion in 2023 to $724.6 billion in 2024, a staggering 22.4% increase. By 2027, this figure is projected to surpass the $1 trillion mark. This is a golden playground, and it’s making all the tech giants drool.

On this battlefield, there are three main players:

👑 The King: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

• Arsenal:
  • Market Leadership: As the market pioneer, AWS boasts an undisputed market share advantage. According to the latest data from Synergy Research Group, AWS’s share of the global cloud infrastructure market holds steady at around 32-34%, leagues ahead of all competitors.
  • Product Depth and Breadth: AWS offers over 200 fully-featured services, from computing, storage, and databases to machine learning, IoT, and artificial intelligence. It’s a “technology supermarket” where enterprises can find virtually anything they need.
  • Massive Customer Base: From startup legends like Netflix and Airbnb to traditional behemoths like Goldman Sachs and the CIA, AWS serves a loyal and extensive customer base. The stable cash flow and network effects from these clients form its deepest moat.
• Achilles’ Heel:
  • Growth Ceiling: As the market leader, AWS’s growth rate is naturally slowing compared to its challengers. The latest earnings report showed its year-over-year growth has decelerated from over 40% in the past to just 12%, a number that has rattled the market’s most sensitive nerves.
  • Cost and Complexity: While powerful, AWS’s services are notoriously complex, and its pricing model can feel like a “bottomless pit.” Many companies complain about receiving unexpectedly high bills, giving competitors a perfect angle of attack.

⚔️ The Challenger: Microsoft Azure

• Arsenal:
  • Enterprise Integration: Having cultivated the enterprise market for decades, Microsoft deeply bundles Azure with its other products like Office 365 and Dynamics 365, creating a powerful ecosystem. For the millions of companies already using Microsoft software, adopting Azure is a logical, frictionless step.
  • Hybrid Cloud Advantage: Azure Stack allows companies to run Azure services in their own data centers, enabling true hybrid cloud deployments. This is a massive draw for financial and government institutions with strict data sovereignty and security requirements.
  • AI Strategy: Through its massive investment in OpenAI (the parent company of ChatGPT), Microsoft has successfully branded itself as the leader in the AI era. They are positioning Azure as the “cloud for AI,” attracting a flood of companies looking to develop AI applications.
• Achilles’ Heel:
  • Market Share Gap: Despite its rapid growth, Azure’s market share (around 24%) still lags significantly behind AWS. Closing that gap will be a long and arduous battle.
  • Brand Perception: In the minds of many developers, Microsoft still carries a “traditional” and “closed” stigma, whereas AWS is often seen as more “open” and “flexible.”

🐘 The Old Giant: Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

• Arsenal:
  • Data and Analytics: Google possesses unparalleled technical prowess in data processing, analytics, and machine learning. Star products like BigQuery and Kubernetes (which originated as an internal Google project) are held in extremely high regard within the industry.
  • Network Infrastructure: Google owns one of the world’s most advanced private fiber-optic networks, allowing it to offer customers exceptionally high-quality, low-latency network services.
  • Open Source Culture: Google actively embraces the open-source community, making it very developer-friendly and helping it attract a loyal following of tech enthusiasts.
• Achilles’ Heel:
  • Sales and Support: Compared to AWS and Azure, GCP’s enterprise sales and customer support teams have long been a point of criticism. Its engineering-driven culture has historically struggled with servicing the needs of large corporate clients.
  • Profitability: GCP was a loss-leader for years. While it has recently achieved profitability, its margins are still minuscule compared to AWS. The market questions how long Google is willing to keep pouring money into this expensive war.

This is the story Wall Street wants you to follow: a dramatic, three-kingdom saga full of twists and turns, requiring you to constantly track news and analyze earnings reports to make “informed” investment decisions.

The Critical Twist: The Chart is the Only Truth

But does any of this actually matter?

You spend dozens of hours studying the information above, feeling like you’ve become an industry expert. But think about it: what part of this “information” isn’t already public? What part hasn’t already been digested, analyzed, and priced in by Wall Street analysts? By the time you feel confident about the cloud market after reading a Gartner report, institutional players might have already been quietly distributing their shares in an overbought zone on the chart. By the time you panic-sell after reading news of AWS’s slowing growth, smart money might have already started accumulating shares at a key support level on the chart.

This fundamental analysis is like driving a car while only looking at the rear-view mirror. The scenery in the mirror is lovely, but it will never tell you whether to turn left or right at the next intersection. The chart, however, is your windshield, complete with a GPS. It doesn’t show you past “stories”; it shows you the present “facts” of capital flow—where the pressure is, where the support lies, when to accelerate, and when to brake. It’s all there in plain sight.

Let’s conduct a “thought experiment”:

• Scenario A (The Sheep): On April 27, 2023, Amazon reports earnings, and AWS growth has slowed significantly. The stock plummets 4% at the open. You see the news, get scared, and sell your shares immediately, successfully “avoiding” the subsequent rally.
• Scenario B (The Hunter): In mid-March 2023, you notice on the AMZN daily chart that the price has pulled back to a long-term trendline support level. At the same time, volume is diminishing, indicating that selling pressure is drying up. You establish a position. Regardless of the noise from the earnings report, you hold your position as long as the price doesn’t violate your pre-determined stop-loss. As a result, you perfectly capture the more than 40% rally from March to July.

Who is the real winner? The news is for the masses. The chart is for the enlightened. The “breadcrumbs” thrown by Wall Street are meant to distract you, allowing them to execute their pre-written “script” without being noticed.

Conclusion: Stop Being the Sheep. Learn to Read the Map.

In the brutal hunting ground of the financial markets, you have only two choices: be a sheep that reads the news, listens to stories, and gets led to the slaughter; or be a hunter who reads the map, tracks the footprints, and seizes control.

Forget the noise of fundamentals, macroeconomics, and expert forecasts. The only truth is etched in the candlesticks and volume bars. Those are the footprints left by real money, the unfiltered EKG of market sentiment. You don’t need to know if AWS’s growth is 12% or 15%; you only need to know if the uptrend on the chart is still intact. You don’t need to care how much market share Azure has stolen; you only need to care if the stock price has broken a critical support level.

Enough is enough. Stop being a docile sheep. It’s time to wake up and learn the real rules of the game. Instead of letting Wall Street’s “stories” dictate the fate of your hard-earned money, take control of your own destiny. Visit our website now to learn how to read the only map that matters—the chart—and become a true market hunter.

Sources:

1. Gartner, Inc.
2. Synergy Research Group
3. Amazon Inc. Investor Relations
4. Microsoft Corp. Investor Relations
5. Microsoft Corp. Investor Relations

Unlocking Technical Analysis: Power Moves with Diagrams

Daily Timeframe (Amazon)

Daily Timeframe (Microsoft)

Daily Timeframe (Google)