85% of companies beat earnings expectations—this AI wave is really making money
The US stock earnings season is almost over, and these numbers are a bit dizzying.
Of the 436 S&P 500 constituent stocks that have reported, 85.1% delivered profits above expectations—historically, the figure has only been 68%.
Looking at a few giants in particular:
After releasing its earnings, Amazon surged more than 20% in two days, and its market cap hit a record high above $3 trillion for the first time. AWS growth hit a new peak in 18 quarters. Cloud demand is “far exceeding supply,” and customers are signing five-year long-term deals. Microsoft Azure grew 43%, with backlog orders worth $678 billion—up 84% year over year. Paid Copilot users also surpassed 30 million. After Atlassian’s report, the stock jumped 35%; Airbnb rose 17%; and Cloudflare hit a new high.
The most sobering part is this figure: In Q2, the S&P 500’s overall EPS grew 26% year over year, and AI infrastructure investment alone accounted for 30% of the incremental profit growth.
Before, the market’s biggest concern was “AI burns money without making profits.” Turns out, they used their earnings reports to shut down the doubts with facts.
The big players’ capital expenditures aren’t being thrown away—they’re turning into revenue.
The US stock earnings season is almost over, and these numbers are a bit dizzying.
Of the 436 S&P 500 constituent stocks that have reported, 85.1% delivered profits above expectations—historically, the figure has only been 68%.
Looking at a few giants in particular:
After releasing its earnings, Amazon surged more than 20% in two days, and its market cap hit a record high above $3 trillion for the first time. AWS growth hit a new peak in 18 quarters. Cloud demand is “far exceeding supply,” and customers are signing five-year long-term deals. Microsoft Azure grew 43%, with backlog orders worth $678 billion—up 84% year over year. Paid Copilot users also surpassed 30 million. After Atlassian’s report, the stock jumped 35%; Airbnb rose 17%; and Cloudflare hit a new high.
The most sobering part is this figure: In Q2, the S&P 500’s overall EPS grew 26% year over year, and AI infrastructure investment alone accounted for 30% of the incremental profit growth.
Before, the market’s biggest concern was “AI burns money without making profits.” Turns out, they used their earnings reports to shut down the doubts with facts.
The big players’ capital expenditures aren’t being thrown away—they’re turning into revenue.