- Better-than-expected results from big banks lift S&P 500 EPS growth for Q3 2025 to 8.5%.
- CEOs appear confident as the earnings season kicks off ,according to our latest LERI reading.
- Potential earnings surprises this week: , , , , and .
- Peak weeks for the Q3 season run from October 27 – November 14.
The third-quarter earnings season for the nation’s largest banks commenced last week, revealing a largely positive picture of the financial health of the sector. So far, major players including , , , , , and have reported results that have generally surpassed analyst expectations, driven by a resilient economy, a rebound in investment banking, and strong performances in their wealth management divisions. Even consumer spending, a worrisome area for banks, came in better-than-anticipated, but that could be up in the air going forward as many of these banks also increased their provisions for credit losses.
But perhaps the most cautious signal came from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who openly discussed the ongoing challenges facing the US economy.
“There continues to be a heightened degree of uncertainty stemming from complex geopolitical conditions, tariffs and trade uncertainty, elevated asset prices and the risk of sticky inflation,” Dimon said.
By Thursday, those warnings started to ring true as a different segment of financials began to report results. Regional banks such as and reported results that had investors worried about the health of their loans. Rising concerns about a potential crisis are being fueled by recent problematic loans and two auto industry-related bankruptcies.
These events highlight potentially lax lending, especially in the private credit market. Zions recently announced a significant charge due to bad loans, prompting an independent review. Following this, Western Alliance alleged fraud by a borrower, rattling investors despite the company reiterating its guidance and 2025 outlook. Zions and Western Alliance both fell 10% on Thursday, and the lost around 4%.
With the addition of those bank reports, the S&P 500 blended EPS growth rate stands at 8.5%. According to FactSet, this would be the ninth consecutive quarter of growth. Revenues are anticipated to grow 6.6% YoY.
CEOs Remain Confident Heading into Q3 Earnings
After rising to its highest level in four years during the last quarter of 2024, the Late Earnings Report Index, our proprietary measure of CEO uncertainty, has now recorded four consecutive quarterly readings below the historical benchmark as companies prepare to report their Q3 results.
The LERI tracks outlier earnings date changes among publicly traded companies with market capitalizations of $250M and higher. The LERI has a baseline reading of 100, and anything above that indicates that companies are feeling uncertain about their current and short-term prospects. A LERI reading under 100 suggests that companies feel they have a pretty good handle on the near-term.
The official pre-peak season LERI reading for Q3 earnings (reports in Q4) stands at 56, the lowest Q4 LERI ever recorded. This is well below the baseline reading, suggesting that when companies announced their earnings dates, they were feeling more certain about economic conditions. As of October 15, there were 61 late outliers and 98 early outliers.
This is the third quarter in a row that the number of outliers is significantly higher than usual. For Q4 2025, the total is 159 vs. Q4 2024, where there were only 139 outliers, showing that more companies are scheduling earnings dates outside of their typical date range.
Source: Wall Street Horizon
On Deck this Week
This week, 1,221 companies in our universe of over 11,000 global equities are slated to release results for the third quarter. Tech will be in focus with out on Wednesday, and on Thursday. We’ll also hear from the first of the Mag 7 reports when reports on Wednesday. Other names to look out for include out tomorrow, industrials such as and , and consumer-facing names such as , , , and .
Source: Wall Street Horizon
Outlier Earnings Dates This Week
Academic research shows that when a company confirms a quarterly earnings date that is later than when they have historically reported, it’s typically a sign that the company will share bad news on their upcoming call, while moving a release date earlier suggests the opposite.5
This week, we get results from a number of large companies on major indexes that have pushed their Q3 2025 earnings dates outside of their historical norms. Five companies within the S&P 500 confirmed outlier earnings dates for this week, three of which are earlier than usual and therefore have positive DateBreaks Factors.
Those names are Chubb Limited (CB), Capital One (COF), and CenterPoint Energy (CNP). The two names with negative DateBreak Factors are Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) and Procter & Gamble (PG).
Q3 Earnings Wave
The peak weeks of the Q3 earnings season are expected to fall between October 27 – November 14, with each week expected to see over 2,000 reports. Currently, November 7 is predicted to be the most active day with 1,219 companies anticipated to report. Thus far, only 62% of companies have confirmed their earnings date (out of our universe of 11,000+ global names), so this is subject to change. The remaining dates are estimated based on historical reporting data.
Source: Wall Street Horizon