Applied Materials headlines a top-heavy Thursday as the August earnings calendar thins out

by Leah Avraham · August 12, 2026

Previews Correspondent, Earnings Dispatch

Thursday is the last dense session of this earnings week and most of the weight sits on one name. Applied Materials reports fiscal third-quarter results after the close, with a conference call at 4:30 p.m. Eastern, according to the company's scheduling release. Consensus stands at $3.39 a share on revenue of about $9.01 billion, growth of roughly 36.7% and 23.4% respectively, per Kiplinger's calendar for the week.

Those estimates track the company's own guidance closely. With its second-quarter results in May, Applied Materials guided to about $8.95 billion of revenue give or take $500 million and non-GAAP earnings of roughly $3.36 give or take $0.20, with Semiconductor Systems at about $6.9 billion and Applied Global Services at about $1.75 billion, according to a Futurum Group analysis of that quarter. Management also lifted its expectation for calendar 2026 semiconductor equipment spending growth to more than 30% year over year, with advanced packaging seen growing above 50%.

The April quarter set a high bar for the trend line rather than the absolute numbers. Revenue was $7.91 billion, up 11.4%, and adjusted earnings of $2.86 a share beat a $2.68 consensus, with gross margin at 50% and operating income up 20% to $2.5 billion, according to CoinCentral's preview. The same account flags a detail worth watching in the cash flow statement: free cash flow fell to $210 million from $1.06 billion in the year-ago quarter, a sharp swing for a company whose shipments are accelerating.

Sell-side positioning going in is constructive. Stifel analysts, quoted in Kiplinger's calendar, said that "amidst a strong AI expansion/investment phase for DRAM, advanced logic and packaging" they expect the company to beat on revenue with sequential growth above 13%. Yahoo Finance's quote page showed Applied Materials at $525.61 at Tuesday's close, up about 105% year to date against roughly 12.9% for the S&P 500, with a 52-week range of $154.47 to $739.67 and a market value near $417 billion. With the shares up that much and the options market pricing a double-digit move, the reaction is more likely to hinge on the October-quarter guide than on the reported numbers.

Two consumer-facing reports come before Thursday's open. JD.com posts second-quarter and interim results, with consensus at $51.55 billion of revenue, up about 3.5%, and $0.86 a share, up nearly 25%, according to a Zacks preview carried by Yahoo Finance. The company has beaten the consensus earnings estimate in each of the last four quarters by an average of 23.8%. The pull in the quarter is the 618 promotion that ran from May 30 to June 18 and continued strength in logistics and services; the drag is spending on food delivery, international expansion and AI tooling, plus a tougher comparison in electronics and appliances.

Tapestry closes out its fiscal year the same morning. Consensus calls for adjusted earnings of $1.25 a share against $1.04 a year ago, capping a full year analysts model at $6.97 versus $5.10 in fiscal 2025, according to a Yahoo Finance preview. The company has beaten expectations in each of the last four quarters, but the more relevant precedent is May 7, when shares fell 12.3% on cautious fourth-quarter guidance even though the reported quarter delivered $1.92 billion of revenue and $1.66 of adjusted earnings. The stock has returned 28.6% over the last 52 weeks against 16.6% for the S&P 500. YETI Holdings also reports before the open, per Kiplinger.

After that, the corporate calendar effectively stops. Kiplinger lists Friday as the lightest day of the week with no large-cap reports scheduled, only a pair of small names. That leaves the macro releases to set the tone into the weekend: July producer prices and weekly jobless claims land at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, and July retail sales follow at the same hour on Friday, according to Kraken's economic brief for Aug. 12.

The retail sales print matters more than usual because the big-box results are still a week out. Home Depot reports on Aug. 18, according to a Motley Fool piece published Aug. 8, and Walmart follows before the open on Aug. 20 with consensus at $0.74 a share against $0.68 a year ago, per a Yahoo Finance preview. Friday's spending data will be the first read investors get on the same demand those two companies are about to describe.

Wednesday's July consumer price index, which rose 0.1% on the month and 3.4% on the year in line with forecasts according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, removed one variable from the week. Thursday's producer price figure is the other half of the inflation picture, and it arrives hours before the single largest earnings report left on the August calendar until Nvidia reports on Aug. 26.