At a glance: 2 S&P 500 names report today — Applied Materials after the close and Tapestry before the open.

The tape ahead

A semicap AI-capex story squares off against a China overhang before the close, and an accessible-luxury print tests whether Coach’s momentum held through Tapestry’s seasonally softer quarter.

Applied Materials (after the close): consensus EPS of $3.39 versus $2.86 last quarter, up 18.7% vs.prev.Q, on revenue of $9.00B, up 13.8% vs.prev.Q — both well above the $2.48 EPS printed a year ago and roughly in line with the company’s own guide (adjusted EPS $3.36 ± $0.20, revenue $8.95B ± $500M). The demand side of the debate is settled for now: AI-driven leading-edge foundry-logic, DRAM and advanced packaging spend has the company guiding more than 30% semiconductor-equipment growth and over 50% packaging growth for 2026, with Samsung and SK Hynix both stepping up capex. What is unsettled is the China overhang layered on top — restrictions now touch roughly 10% of Applied’s business, more than double the prior year’s level, and a fresh shipment-halt order tied to Hua Hong has kept the stock roughly 27% below its highs even as the AI thesis strengthens. At 7.4% the implied move sits well above the 2.2% average realized move over the last eight prints against a perfect beat streak and a 6.5% surprise last time out — a rich setup that leaves room for disappointment if China or DRAM-timing commentary disappoints even on an in-line quarter. The muted +0.6% one-year EPS CAGR reflects a flattish stretch before the current AI re-acceleration; the +5.2%, +17.2% and +22.7% three/five/ten-year figures are the better read on the underlying trend, and the same WFE-spending cycle makes this a read-across for Lam Research and KLA.

Tapestry (before the open): consensus EPS of $1.28 versus $1.66 last quarter, down 23.1% vs.prev.Q, on revenue of $1.87B, down 2.5% vs.prev.Q — both still above the $1.04 EPS printed a year ago. The sequential step-down looks seasonal rather than a demand signal: fiscal Q4 (April–June) is Tapestry’s structurally softer quarter following the stronger holiday-adjacent Q3, and last quarter Coach put up handbag-unit growth above 20% with average unit retail up at a low-double-digit rate and double-digit revenue growth across North America and China, prompting a full-year guidance raise to roughly $7.95B revenue and $6.95 EPS. The debate into this print is whether that Coach momentum held through the quieter quarter and whether tariff mitigation kept pace — last quarter’s duty headwind ran to 180 basis points company-wide (150bp at Coach, 440bp at the smaller Kate Spade), with management leaning on manufacturing diversification to blunt it. At 10.0% the implied move is roughly in line with the 9.6% average realized move over the last eight prints, and a 27.8% surprise last quarter on a perfect beat streak suggests the Street has struggled to keep pace with the turnaround. The deeply negative multi-year EPS CAGRs (-76.5% one-year, -36.2% three-year, -5.5% ten-year) look inconsistent with everything above and are best read as a distorted trailing base — likely reflecting elevated charges and financing costs tied to the abandoned Capri Holdings deal in fiscal 2024 — rather than a reversal in the underlying growth story; the read here extends to accessible-luxury peers still to report this cycle.

Scorecard — reported since we last wrote

Four names from yesterday’s edition have since reported, all beating on both EPS and revenue — and all four sold off anyway, a beat-the-print-sell-the-tape pattern that says more about where the bar and the guide sat than about the quarters themselves.

Cisco’s headline was clean — a 4.4% EPS surprise and 2.5% revenue beat, EPS up 15.1% sequentially — but the stock fell 6.5% after hours, the sharpest reaction-vs-surprise contradiction of the four and a sign the FY27/order-pace commentary flagged in yesterday’s edition as the real swing factor landed softer than the quarter itself. Coherent’s 7.6% EPS surprise and 23.4% sequential jump likewise didn’t hold the stock up: a 5.4% after-hours slide despite a straightforward beat-and-raise quarter suggests the already-rich 12.2% implied move flagged yesterday had set a bar the print alone couldn’t clear. Amcor’s smaller -1.8% regular-session move was milder but still negative against a 3.2%/5.3% EPS/revenue beat and the largest sequential EPS jump of the four (+28.1%) — with a roughly 62% historical beat rate and an integration-heavy quarter, the market may be discounting how much of that jump is Berry-deal accretion rather than organic strength. Trimble beat by 7.2% on EPS and 2.1% on revenue, grew a more modest 8.9% sequentially in line with its steadier software-transition setup, and still gave back 2.8% — a milder version of the same pattern.

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