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 dominating headlines this year.
The strength isn’t confined to a couple of tech giants, either. Overall, 10 of 11 sectors are reporting year-over-year earnings growth, with nine of those 10 sectors reporting double-digit earnings growth. Energy is surging 146.3% year-over-year, heavily supported by firm fuel prices, for example. Communication Services earnings are up 116.9% year-over-year, largely amplified by mark-to-market gains from AI infrastructure investments. Meanwhile, health care is the lone detractor, reporting a year-over-year profit decline of around 6.5%.
Butters also shared some common themes in what executives are discussing on Q2 earnings calls. The term “tariff refund” has been cited on only 35 earnings calls to date among S&P 500 companies for Q2. By comparison, the term “AI” has been cited on 305 calls, while “inflation” has been cited on 193 calls. Meanwhile, the term “tariff” has been cited on 162 earnings calls so far in Q2.
Sheryl Estrada
Sheryl.Estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Fortune 500 Power Moves
Ash Bhumbla was appointed EVP and CFO of Hormel Foods Corporation (No. 363), effective Sept. 8. Paul Kuehneman, who has served as interim CFO since October 2025, will remain a key senior leader within the company's finance organization. Bhumbla is an experienced finance leader. He joins Hormel Foods from Tyson Foods, where he served as SVP and CFO for the company's chicken segment. In 2025, he concurrently served as CFO of Tyson's international segment. Previously, he held senior finance and corporate development leadership roles at Perdue Farms and International Flavors & Fragrances. He began his career with strategy consulting firm Marakon Associates.
The weekly Fortune 500 Power Moves column tracks Fortune 500 company C-suite shifts—see the most recent edition.
More notable moves:
Laurie Bergman was appointed CFO of Ecovyst Inc. (NYSE: ECVT), a chemical manufacturing company, effective Aug. 24. Bergman succeeds Michael Feehan, who will depart the company. Bergman joins Ecovyst after having previously served as the CFO of Legacy Food Group since July 2024. Before that, she served as CFO of Liquid Environmental Solutions. She also served as chief accounting officer, corporate controller and VP accounting of UGI Corporation.
Samuel J. Poletti was promoted to CFO of Amrize (NYSE: AMRZ), effective Aug. 24. Poletti succeeds Baris Oran, who is stepping down for personal reasons. Poletti has been a member of Amrize’s executive committee as its chief strategy and M&A officer since the company’s listing on the NYSE in June 2025. He led the spin-off of Amrize to establish it as an independent company. Poletti had a more than 20-year career at Holcim in M&A, finance, and strategy.
Big Deal
KPMG's Mid-Year 2026 M&A Pulse Survey, drawing on 300 corporate and private equity dealmakers, finds momentum holding steady despite geopolitical headwinds.
Eighty-four percent of corporates expect deal volume to stay flat or climb in the second half, with international expansion now their top driver—jumping from 53% at year-end 2025 to 67% at mid-year—even though most keep deals under $500 million and assume modest 10%–40% synergies.
Private equity shows similar growth ambitions but more caution: 45% expect higher volumes, yet nearly half report longer timelines, and 28% have paused deals over Middle East tensions.
Still, appetite for mega-deals surged, with 39% of PE firms now eyeing transactions above $1 billion, up from just 5% at year-end 2025, alongside growing use of private credit alongside traditional financing.
KPMG's takeaway: the rest of 2026 favors dealmakers combining strategic ambition with disciplined execution. You can access the full report based on the corporate dealmaker respondents here.
Going deeper
Overheard
"The goal isn't to create a substitute for me."
—Shikhar Ghosh, a Harvard Business School professor, told Fortune in a interview. Ghosh is one of the faculty members with an AI version that is part of an online startup bootcamp, where aspiring founders can rehearse investor pitches, sales calls, and board meetings. The offering is another way to prepare and challenge their thinking, so that when "we do come together live, we can spend more of that valuable time on the questions where human judgment and conversation matter most," Ghosh said.