As of Sept. 4, seventy S&P 500 companies had guided third-quarter EPS up and 41 down

by Clara Borresen · September 10, 2026

Senior Earnings Analyst, Earnings Dispatch

The scorecard for the current reporting cycle is unusual in one specific way, and it is worth stating precisely because the ratio it involves normally runs the other direction. In its Earnings Insight report dated Sept. 4, 2026, FactSet counts 70 S&P 500 companies that have issued positive earnings-per-share guidance for the third quarter of 2026 and 41 that have issued negative guidance.

For a sense of scale, the same report gives the five-year average number of S&P 500 companies issuing positive quarterly EPS guidance as 43. The current count of 70 is well above that benchmark. The same report puts the ten-year average for positive guidance at 41. That figure is worth handling carefully, because it is numerically identical to the count of companies guiding negative this quarter and describes something entirely different. The report as we read it does not publish a corresponding five-year or ten-year average for negative guidance, so this desk is not putting a figure on how far below normal the 41 negative guiders sits.

That guidance mix lines up with what has happened to the aggregate estimate. FactSet writes, in one sentence, that "the estimated (year-over-year) earnings growth rate for Q3 2026 of 28.5% today is above the estimate of 26.6% at the start of the quarter (June 30)." The "today" in that sentence is Sept. 4, and the baseline it is measured against is June 30. The direction is the story. Bottom-up quarterly estimates more often erode as a quarter progresses; this one has been marked up by roughly two percentage points since the quarter opened.

On the revenue line, the report has the index "expected to report (year-over-year) revenue growth of 11.9%" for the third quarter. Growth expectations are broad rather than concentrated: FactSet says "all eleven sectors are expected to report year-over-year earnings growth, led by the Energy, Information Technology, Communication Services, and Materials sectors."

Looking back at the quarter that has just finished reporting, the report covers the second quarter of 2026 "with 99% of S&P 500 companies reporting actual results" and states that "87% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive EPS surprise and 77% of S&P 500 companies has reported a positive revenue surprise." Those are beat rates, not growth rates, and the two should not be conflated. This desk did not find a single blended year-over-year growth figure for the second quarter in the report we read, and is not supplying one.

Beyond the quarter, the report puts projected calendar-2026 earnings growth at 31.5% and calendar-2027 earnings growth at 15.0%. On valuation, FactSet writes: "The forward 12-month P/E ratio for the S&P 500 is 19.5. This P/E ratio is below the 5-year average of 19.8 but above the 10-year average of 19.0."

All of those figures carry a hard as-of date of Sept. 4, 2026. Two full trading sessions have passed since — Tuesday, Sept. 8 and Wednesday, Sept. 9, with Monday, Sept. 7 a Labor Day holiday — and Wednesday's was broadly negative: the S&P 500 closed Sept. 9 at 7,636.36, down 0.48%; the Nasdaq Composite at 26,253.34, down 0.64%; the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 52,380.66, down 0.77%; and the Russell 2000 at 2,919.86, down 1.36%. Thursday's session was still open as this article was written, so no closing level for today is available and none is given here.

September is the stub of the calendar, and the companies filling it are the off-cycle reporters whose fiscal quarters end in July or August. They are a small sample and a skewed one — heavily retail and consumer — but they are the live data between the aggregate seasons.

Chewy reported Wednesday at 7:05 a.m. Eastern, posting fiscal second-quarter net sales of $3.33 billion, up 7.3% year over year, with a gross margin of 30.4%. On a GAAP basis the company reported net income of $80.5 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.20. On a non-GAAP basis it reported adjusted EBITDA of $226.7 million, an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.8%, adjusted net income of $148.8 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.36. Autoship sales were $2.82 billion, or 84.6% of net sales, and active customers reached 21.7 million, up 3.8%.

That Chewy pairing is a useful reminder of what a beat rate is measured against. Adjusted diluted EPS of $0.36 is 80% above GAAP diluted EPS of $0.20, and a headline that reports a comparison against consensus without saying which of the two it used has given the reader almost nothing. Chief executive Sumit Singh said the quarter gave the company "confidence to raise our full-year revenue and profitability outlook"; the revised numerical ranges were not in the portion of the release this desk reviewed, and are therefore not stated here.

Macy's, Inc. reported Thursday morning and raised all four lines of its full-year outlook, including adjusted diluted EPS to a range of "$2.15 to $2.35" from "$2.00 to $2.20." Its second-quarter GAAP diluted EPS of $0.62 and adjusted diluted EPS of $0.63 both "include a gross tariff refund benefit, less investments back into the business, resulting in a net tariff refund benefit of $0.23 in the quarter," per the release. Excluding that benefit, the company put adjusted EPS growth at 14%.

Two large software companies report after Thursday's close, which will add materially to the software and technology sample: Adobe said on Aug. 31 that its fiscal third-quarter results come out on "Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026," and Oracle said on Sept. 2 that its first-quarter fiscal 2027 results "will be released on Thursday, September 10th, after the close of the market." Neither had reported when this was written.

The through-line for readers is that the aggregate numbers and the individual prints are measured differently. FactSet's 28.5% is a bottom-up estimate as of a stated date. Chewy's and Macy's results are actual, unaudited, and reported on two bases each. Any scorecard that mixes them without labels is measuring nothing in particular.