Investors are likely to see tech and financial stocks drive the lion's share of earnings growth over the first half of the year, dashing hopes that a broadening of the prewar rally would wean the market from its reliance on those sectors heading into the start of the first quarter reporting season.
That said, a big improvement in earnings forecasts across the board, paired with the market's recent pullback, should set up an attractive entry point for investors heading into the back half of the year.
"Earnings momentum remains intact, and Q1 reports could provide some foundational support for equities," said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise.
"Profit margins remain strong by historical standards, earnings revisions have accelerated meaningfully in recent months, and valuation multiples have compressed from late-2025 extremes, particularly in Technology and mega-cap stocks," he added
Collective S&P 500 profits are forecast to rise by around 14.4% from last year to just under $609 billion, according to estimates collated by LSEG. That's a solid $10 billion improvement from late January and suggests companies have been able to improve margins and increase efficiencies despite soaring oil and energy prices and a retrenchment in consumer sentiment.
"One of the underappreciated developments from the first quarter is that the market absorbed a pullback while forward earnings estimates continued to move higher, a rare combination that tells us the fundamental backdrop remains better than the headlines suggest," said Mark Hackett, chief markets strategists at Nationwide.
But the biggest contributor to earnings growth, as well as the sector that has seen the biggest forecast boost since the start of the year, remains Information Technology, which includes megacap giants Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and Broadcom.
The sector is likely to see earnings grow more than 46% from last year to $182.8 billion, a tally that would represent around 30% of the entire S&P 500 earnings scorecard. When the Communications Services sector is included, with names like Alphabet and Meta Platforms, the overall contribution rises to 40%. Adding in Consumer Discretionary, which includes Amazon, brings it to 47%.
The same three sectors will also contribute a similar portion of the $673.2 billion that S&P 500 companies will earn over the three months ending in June.
JPMorgan will get the ball rolling on financials next week, with first quarter updates following from the country's biggest banks, as analysts see sector earnings rising 18% to around $98.5 billion.
CEO Jamie Dimon was upbeat on the bank's prospects, but relatively cautious on risks to the broader economy in his annual letter to shareholders, which was published Monday.
Still, a spate of big corporate fund-raising, including new rounds for OpenAI and Anthropic worth around $140 billion, and McCormick's $69 billion merger with Unilever, will pad the bottom lines of Wall Street dealmakers, while historic volatility in stock and bond markets will boost trading books.
"Capital markets should drive earnings beats, but strong results alone are unlikely to drive outperformance, in our view," said Bank of America strategists led by Ebrahim Poonawala. "Instead, we expect earnings call commentary from management teams to be far more important as investors try to assess downside risks."
Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson, the bank's chief U.S. equity strategist, likes the banking sector in terms of potential value heading into the earnings season, and notes that risks tied to AI disruption and private credit exposure are likely overdone.
"As the market moves past the geopolitical overhang and these aforementioned variables, we think the focus will turn back to a solid earnings, loan growth and capital return story for the banks," he said in a note published Monday.
He also likes megacap tech, and the Magnificent Seven cohort, noting that it trades at a forward multiple similar to that of the defensive Consumer Staples sector, but generates more than three times more in earnings growth.
"From a relative value perspective, we think the group looks quite attractive here after having already been through 6 months of consolidation/correction for reasons that are now well understood and appreciated," he added.
Corporate commentary from both sectors, as well as those with a more acute vulnerability to oil prices and the U.S. war with Iran, will also be in stark focus as investors look to calibrate both CEO confidence and the resilience of the broader economy into their near-term outlooks.
Lori Calvasina, head of U.S. equity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, thinks companies "might be in the early days of understanding the ripple effects of the war," and that "optimistic comments have been tied to the idea that the conflict will be of a shorter duration."
"It might not be until the July/August reporting season that companies have enough of a handle on the situation to be able to credibly adjust numbers," she said. "We could start to see some material changes to forecasts starting in April, but we continue to believe it will take more time for companies to understand what the impacts will end up being."
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