Earnings Chatter

Thursday, July 23, 2026

At a glance: 30 S&P 500 names report today — RTX, T-Mobile, Thermo Fisher and Lockheed Martin already printed before the bell (all beats), Union Pacific and Blackstone are still to come pre-open, and Intel and Newmont headline after the close tonight.

The tape ahead

Eight marquee names today, split unusually across the clock. Four of the morning's before-the-open reporters — RTX, T-Mobile, Thermo Fisher and Lockheed Martin — had already printed by the time this note went out, all comfortably ahead of consensus. Union Pacific and Blackstone are still to come before the bell, and Intel and Newmont report after the close tonight.

Intel (INTC), after the close. The debate is 18A: whether yields are tracking toward profitability — coverage points to a jump from roughly 65% to 85% quarter-over-quarter — or whether profitable-yield timing slips further into 2027, a call that overshadows the headline revenue/EPS line. Set-up into the print is mixed: Intel Foundry just landed Fortinet as its first named external customer under CEO Lip-Bu Tan (the SP6 security chip on Intel 4), adding to the Apple and Microsoft 18A tie-ups underpinning the bull case, but the stock shed roughly a fifth of its value the week of July 8 on yield-delay headlines and after AMD posted its first-ever quarterly data-center revenue lead over Intel — sharpening the read-across for both names and for foundry-customer/PC-channel peers watching the same signals. A 62% beat rate and a +2108.68% surprise last quarter (off a near-zero prior-year base) are the backdrop; the 12.52% implied move sits well above the 3.02% average realized move on the last eight prints, and with INTC up sharply year-to-date, sell-side commentary is flagging this as an unusually high-bar, high-volatility print. Consensus EPS of $0.2175 implies a sequential step-down versus last quarter's $0.29 (75% of it), even as the y/y comparison stays easy against last year's $0.10 loss. CNBC

RTX Corporation (RTX), pre-open — already reported. Q2 adjusted EPS of $1.89 cleared the $1.66 Street consensus (range $1.61–$1.74 across 18 estimates) and revenue of $24.708B beat the $22.880B estimate; EPS also came in above last quarter's $1.78, reversing the sequential step-down consensus had implied heading in (93% of Q1's print). That's an eighth straight beat in our tracking (100% beat rate, last 8 quarters), on top of last quarter's +16.95% surprise — an unusually clean beat streak for a name this size. The 4.88% options-implied move on the print sits close to the stock's 4.79% average realized one-day move on prior reports, so the straddle looks fairly priced rather than complacent given that beat-rate history. Trailing EPS growth stays strong near-term (+39.68% 1y, +12.37% 3y CAGR), even as the -5.36% 10-year CAGR is a reminder of how far the group's earnings base has come off a depressed prior decade. With defense-budget tailwinds and the Pratt & Whitney GTF output ramp both live debates for the supply chain, today's beat sets a high bar for the rest of the aerospace & defense complex still to report this week.

T-Mobile US (TMUS), pre-open — already reported. Q2 EPS of $3.13 blew through the $2.60 consensus (range $2.48–$2.86, 17 ests.) and reversed the sequential step-down the Street had priced in versus last quarter's $2.77, even as revenue of $22.791B came in essentially in line — a touch below the $22.940B consensus — pointing to a margin/subscriber-mix beat rather than a topline surprise. The quarter's standout was broadband, with net adds above 500,000 that T-Mobile says make it the fastest-growing ISP in the U.S., alongside continued postpaid account strength that drove management to raise full-year 2026 guidance for postpaid net account additions and Core Adjusted EBITDA. With an 88% beat rate over the last eight quarters and a +31.07% surprise last quarter, the Street has been conditioned to expect upside, and today's print again delivered; against that backdrop the 5.31% ATM straddle looks rich versus the 2.88% average realized 1-day move on prints. A clean beat-and-raise with broadband share gains as the standout sets a constructive read-across for Verizon, which reports Friday. T-Mobile Q2 2026 results

Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO), pre-open — already reported, and it was a clean beat: adjusted EPS of $6.03 came in well above the $5.71 consensus (range $5.65–$5.75, 21 ests.) and above last year's $5.36, while revenue of $11.994B cleared the $11.701B Street number. Consensus already implied 105% of the prior quarter's $5.44 (sequential growth expected), and the actual print landed even higher. Commentary around the release flagged continued soft instrument demand from academic and government customers in the US and China even as broader end-market activity firmed, so the academic-funding overhang isn't fully resolved despite the headline beat. This extends a 100% beat rate over the last eight quarters (last surprise +3.79%), and shares were reported trading up roughly 4% pre-market. Read-through is constructive for the broader life-sciences-tools complex (Danaher, Waters, Sartorius, Avantor) as a signal instrument and consumables demand may be troughing. StockStory

Union Pacific Corporation (UNP), pre-open. The print itself is almost secondary to the overhang: UP and Norfolk Southern are mid-review at the STB on their transcontinental merger, with the Board holding the case in abeyance and applicants due to file the remaining tranche of supplemental responses by July 27 — management still guides to an early/mid-2027 close, so any incremental commentary on the regulatory timeline moves the stock more than the quarter's carloads. Operationally, the debate is whether Q1's momentum holds: UP posted a 59.9% adjusted operating ratio (+80bps y/y) and guided pricing gains of 3.5–4.0% above inflation for 2026, even as intermodal carloads have run down mid-single-digits against resilient bulk/industrial volumes. CSX's Q2 print this week (volumes +6%, intermodal +9%, margins +240bps) is a constructive read-across for eastern network demand, though UP's book skews more bulk/industrial and Mexico cross-border. A 62% beat rate and a +2.42% last-quarter surprise are the backdrop; the 3.81% implied move sits modestly above the 3.59% average realized move on the last eight prints, plausibly a merger-headline premium rather than a numbers one. Consensus EPS of $3.23 implies sequential growth versus last quarter's $2.93 (110% of it), against a 1/3/5/10-year EPS CAGR set of 8.05%/2.22%/8.75%/8.12%. STB PR-26-13

Blackstone Inc. (BX), pre-open. The print turns on whether fee-related earnings and fundraising momentum can offset a well-flagged slowdown in realizations: Blackstone pre-announced over $500M in Q2 realization-related revenue (mostly performance fees) for the April 1–June 23 window, while BXCI enters the quarter hot after hitting the $10B hard cap on its latest opportunistic credit fund and a record quarter of institutional inflows in Q1. Sector sentiment is mixed into the print — commentary has flagged a "private-credit winter" of retail BDC/interval-fund redemptions and estimate cuts across the alts complex, though peers KKR, Apollo and Ares struck a calmer tone on fundraising last quarter, so BX's read here helps set the tone for that cohort's prints this cycle (commentary, flagged as such). An 88% beat rate and a modest +1.69% last-quarter surprise are the backdrop; the 4.34% implied move sits above the 3.89% average realized move on the last eight prints. Consensus EPS of $1.34 implies a slight sequential step-down versus last quarter's $1.36 (98% of it), against a still-strong 6.85%/17.94%/20.88%/20.54% run of 1/3/5/10-year EPS CAGRs. Blackstone IR

Lockheed Martin (LMT), pre-open — already reported. Q2 EPS of $7.94 beat the $7.20 consensus (range $6.80–$7.37) on revenue of $20.06B vs. $19.33B expected; the year-ago comp of $1.46 was depressed by a roughly $1.6B combined reach-forward loss on a classified Aeronautics program taken in Q2 2025, which is the driver behind the negative 1y/3y/5y EPS CAGRs, and its absence this quarter — alongside continued F-35 production volume — did the heavy lifting on the swing. The release also showed a record $230B backlog on $65B of new orders and $2.9B of free cash flow, and consensus already implied above-trend sequential growth versus last quarter's $6.44 (112% of it) before the actual print cleared even that bar. The 4.77% options-implied move looks conservative next to LMT's 5.57% average realized swing on the last eight prints, particularly after a beat this large following last quarter's -3.78% miss (62% beat rate over 8 quarters); shares were up about 2.1% in early trading. A clean, charge-free beat with a record backlog reinforces the defense-budget tailwind narrative alongside today's RTX print, though the size of last year's classified-program charge is a reminder that EPS quality still varies by program mix across the primes reporting later this cycle. PR Newswire

Newmont (NEM), after the close. The debate is whether record free cash flow generation (Q1's all-time-high $3.1B, per the company) can hold up as 2026 guidance steps down — attributable production guided to roughly 5.3Moz from 5.9Moz in 2025 and AISC guided higher, with the Street modeling Q2 production down y/y and a realized gold price easing from Q1's record level as bullion corrected off its January all-time high. That production/cost/price mix — not a demand problem — is the backdrop for why consensus EPS of $1.98 (68% of last quarter's $2.90) implies a sequential step-down even as the name carries a 119.26%/12.75%/31.10% set of 1/5/10-year EPS CAGRs (3-year unavailable), an 88% beat rate and a +33.45% last surprise. Set-up: management lifted the buyback authorization to $6B and repurchased $2.4B of stock since the last call, alongside completing more of the post-Newcrest non-core divestiture program aimed at lowering the go-forward cost curve. Read-across: Agnico Eagle and Barrick both posted record profitability and richer capital returns last cycle, so NEM's unit costs relative to that peer set — not just the gold tape — are squarely in focus. The 5.38% implied move sits well above the 1.32% average realized move on the last eight prints; shares fell nearly 15% in June alone on the gold pullback and cost guidance. Newmont IR

Also reporting today

Twenty-two more S&P names round out the day, led by Comcast and Honeywell before the open, Freeport-McMoRan (a copper/materials read into tonight's Newmont print) and Norfolk Southern (a rail read-across alongside Union Pacific's merger overhang), plus a cluster of regional banks and insurers (Huntington Bancshares, Hartford, Ameriprise) and consumer names (Deckers, Tractor Supply, Snap-on).

Scorecard — reported since we last wrote

Yesterday's 14 previewed names skewed toward beats but the reactions were noisy. Alphabet's headline surprise was enormous (+215.17%, largely a GAAP mark-to-market effect on its equity investments) yet the stock slipped 1.46% — the widest surprise-to-reaction gap of the group. Tesla's -38.52% miss drew a comparatively muted -1.3% reaction, while GE Vernova's -22.44% miss hit hardest, down -8.69%. On the other side, Wabtec's modest 4.91% beat still fetched a 10.04% pop, the best reaction of the batch, and ServiceNow's clean 5.09% beat sold off -6.47% anyway — guidance and AI-monetization commentary, not the print itself, drove that tape. AT&T (+10.72% surprise, +3.5% reaction) and Philip Morris (+7.41%, +3.33%) were the cleanest beat-and-rally stories among yesterday's pre-open names.

Rest of the week

The week closes out light: six names Friday, led by Exxon and SLB for the read on crude realization and oilfield-services activity, American Express for consumer card spend, NextEra Energy on the utility/renewables side, Verizon as a direct read-across against this morning's T-Mobile broadband/postpaid beat, and Charter rounding out the cable/broadband picture.

Informational only — not investment advice. Figures are consensus/estimates and option-implied values from public sources and may be revised.