Corporate earnings season is almost over. Here's a report card
With more than 90% of S&P 500 companies reporting, it’s looking like an A.

Corporate earnings reports are still coming in as we head toward the end of the financial results season — Cisco comes out on Wednesday and Disney on Thursday. Nvidia reports next week.
But with about 90% of companies in the S&P 500 having now reported, we’re getting an increasingly clear picture of how it’s been going for big companies in this uncertain economy.
Of the stock analysts “Marketplace” spoke with Monday, none of them had anything negative to say about how corporate America is doing right now.
“It’s been a good earnings season,” said Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst at brokerage firm Capital.com. She said, of the S&P 500 companies that have already reported: “Over 80% have actually beaten estimates for earnings-per-share, and over 75% (are) beating revenue forecasts.”
This strength is led by artificial intelligence and tech stocks, with earnings up 26% over last year. But it’s not only that sector, said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.
“Financials 22.2%, communications services up 15.5%. Utilities up 13.4%, driven mainly by the power needs by AI,” he said.
But while earnings have been impressive, stock performance has not, said Richard de Chazal, macro analyst at William Blair Equity Research.
“The market’s reaction since the end of October has been a little bit circumspect. So the S&P 500 up until Friday was down about 2.4%,” he said.
Now, heading into earnings season, stock prices were already pretty high, said Stovall at CFRA.
“The real problem I think is valuations, price-to-earnings ratios. Recently the S&P 500 was trading at a more than 40% premium to its average 20-year P/E,” he said.
Keep in mind, the market kept hitting record highs through the summer and early fall, said Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial.
“You’ve had — call it a 40% rally since the April lows. Coming into Q3 reporting, the market — very overbought, pretty high expectations — maybe we’ll call it ‘priced for perfection,’” he said.
And “perfection” is hard to beat.
Still, Turnquist said, company’s forecasts in their earnings calls have been upbeat.
“We haven’t had a lot of downside, negative commentary from corporate America. They’re talking about this resilient consumer, more and more spending on AI,” he said.
So it looks like America’s biggest companies will have more good news early next year.


