It’s no secret that the AI race has turned cash printing machines into huge cash incinerators. But, back in November, when we published “Danger Zone: The Losers in the AI Arms Race” and named Oracle (ORCL) a clear loser of the AI buildout race, no one else was talking about the cash flow burn from skyrocketing off-balance sheet debt.
With Oracle’s stock down 40% since our report, investors have been forced to pay attention.
Today we update our AI Winners and Losers series with the latest data from 2Q26 filings. We show who’s most likely to win the AI race and the astronomical risk in other AI stocks.
Below, we provide an excerpt from our latest Danger Zone report. Get the full report a la carte here.
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A True 4-Alarm Fire
Figure 2 from the full report shows the latest trailing-twelve-month (TTM) free cash flow (FCF) figures for NVIDIA (NVDA), Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), Meta (META), and Amazon (AMZN).
The picture is even clearer than it was in November 2025. Only two companies still generate positive FCF over the TTM.
Figure 2: TTM Free Cash Flow (FCF) of AI Tech Giants
Sources: New Constructs, LLC and company filings
Figure 3 illustrates the recent disconnect in FCF between the FCF winners and the rest of the AI giants.
From calendar 2015 through 2Q26, one company generated $296 billion in cumulative FCF. Over the same time, another company generated $200 billion in FCF while the remaining four burned a combined cumulative $948 billion in FCF.
Figure 3: Cumulative FCF of AI Spenders: 2015 – 2Q26
Sources: New Constructs, LLC and company filings
Not Every Company Can Win
All the major AI stocks trade as if each will win the AI race. They are all priced for perfection…and then some. Specifically, we’re referring to the premium to economic book value, or no-growth value, at which the stocks trade. Even the company with the “lowest” expectations trades at a level where its stock price implies the company’s profits will grow 2.6 times TTM levels.
At some point, and soon, the cash burn must reverse course and rise dramatically for these stocks to maintain their valuations and avoid major declines.
…there’s much more in the full report. You can buy the report a la carte here.
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