The S&P 500’s earnings surge looks incredible. Two companies explain why

Good morning. There’s one number Wall Street watches more closely than almost any other: how much more (or less) money the biggest publicly traded companies in the U.S. are making compared with a year ago. It’s a pulse check not just for the market, but for the broader economy. And right now, that pulse is racing.

As of Monday, the blended earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 in Q2 2026 is 51%, according to an analysis by John Butters, VP and senior earnings analyst at FactSet, shared with CFO Daily. (Blended means it combines actual results from companies that have already reported with estimates for those that haven’t yet.) If that number holds, it would be the index’s highest earnings growth rate since Q2 2021, when it hit 91.6%.

However, two companies—Alphabet and Amazon—are responsible for most of the jump in that growth rate since June 30. Both reported actual GAAP earnings per share that blew past analyst estimates, and both got a major lift from unrealized gains on investments recognized as other income. Alphabet posted EPS of $9.11 versus an estimate of $2.88. Amazon reported $5.75 versus an estimate of $1.82.

Strip out those two companies, and the picture changes. The blended earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 falls to 32.6% from 51%, per Butters’s analysis.

Yet even without Alphabet and Amazon, 32.6% would still be the S&P 500’s highest earnings growth rate since Q3 2021, when it hit 40.6%, he noted. It would also mark the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth for the index—a streak that predates the AI infrastructure buildout........

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