Corporate America’s third-quarter earnings season is about to begin, and by the estimates of Wall Street analysts, it will once again be a story written by artificial intelligence.
Analysts on average expect S&P 500 earnings to rise about 31 percent from a year earlier for the quarter, according to earnings researchers — with roughly two-thirds of that leap coming from the technology sector and AI heavyweights such as Alphabet, Amazon and Meta Platforms. The reporting season unofficially kicks off next week with results from big banks including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.
The concentration is the point. Tech share gains helped the S&P 500 reach a record high this week, and strategists estimate that 70 to 80 percent of overall earnings growth could trace back to technology and AI when energy is included. Energy itself is expected to post earnings growth of about 115 percent, with US oil prices having surged roughly 30 percent in the third quarter during the ongoing war with Iran.
The flip side is a quiet warning. Sectors untouched by the AI boom — consumer staples and real estate among them — are posting some of the weakest growth estimates in the index. It is a two-speed economy in a single earnings table: extraordinary expansion where the servers hum, stagnation almost everywhere else.
That is why Thursday’s AI-driven selloff mattered beyond one day’s trading. When a single company’s revenue update can knock 3 percent off the semiconductor index, the market is confessing how much of its value rests on one storyline. The next three weeks of earnings calls will test whether that storyline still deserves the price.
Related reading: Global Dealmaking Cools in the Third Quarter, but 2026 Still Ranks Near Record Pace · Oil Jumps as Tanker Attacks and a Gulf Hurricane Tighten Supply at the Same Time · Consumer Sentiment Slides to a Five-Month Low as Price Frustration Mounts
