At a glance: 7 S&P 500 names report today — Marvell, Autodesk and Workday after the close, Dollar General, Best Buy and Hormel before the bell, and Ulta Beauty after the close — the last cluster on the calendar this week, with no further S&P 500 names currently scheduled through Friday.

The tape ahead

Marvell reports after the close at a consensus of $0.93 (range $0.88–$0.96, 33 estimates), and the options market is pricing a 10.35% move against just a 2.41% average realized swing over the last eight prints — the widest implied/realized gap on today's slate, and a much bigger ask than the 0.64% surprise the stock delivered last quarter. Sequentially both lines point to solid growth (up 16% vs prev.Q. on EPS, up 12% vs prev.Q. on revenue), and management's own guidance of roughly $2.7B in revenue and $0.93 in non-GAAP EPS already lines up with the Street. The debate is custom-silicon and AI-networking momentum: management raised its fiscal 2027 and 2028 outlooks sharply on the last call, guiding data-center revenue to grow roughly 50% this year, so the bar into tonight is a high one built on hyperscaler XPU-attach and optical-interconnect bookings staying as strong as advertised rather than merely holding steady. Read-across runs through Broadcom's custom-silicon franchise and the broader AI-networking/optical complex; a soft print would raise questions about the durability of that bookings strength well beyond Marvell itself.

Autodesk also reports after the close, consensus $3.12 (range $3.07–$3.28, 27 estimates), an 8.14% implied move against a 1.46% realized average and a perfect 100% beat rate (last surprise +5.15%). Sequentially consensus implies modest growth on both lines (up 4% vs prev.Q. on EPS, up 4% vs prev.Q. on revenue), consistent with trailing EPS growth that's positive over one and three years (+2.0%, +11.5%) but negative over five (-0.8%) — a name whose growth profile has been uneven rather than steadily compounding. The print is a read on the transaction-model transition: management has guided new-subscription growth to stay pressured this quarter as channel incentives shift toward new-business capture even as renewals hold up, with the new model's revenue tailwind narrowing to roughly two points from 3.5 in the first quarter — a deceleration worth watching closely. AECO/construction momentum and emerging markets should keep offsetting, while EMEA normalizes after a tough prior-year comparison. The pending MaintainX deal (~$3.6B, targeted at over $135M of 2026 ARR) isn't in tonight's numbers but is a read on how aggressively Autodesk is willing to spend to build out Operations Solutions beyond core design software.

Workday rounds out the after-close software trio at $2.61 consensus (range $2.41–$2.85, 36 estimates), a 7.34% implied move against a 1.78% realized average, and a clean 100% beat rate (last surprise +5.68%). Sequentially the two lines diverge — EPS consensus implies a slight step-down (down 2% vs prev.Q.) even as revenue implies continued growth (up 4% vs prev.Q.) — a gap consistent with the margin/investment tension analysts have flagged: agentic-AI momentum (Workday Learning's Sana-powered expansion, broader agent adoption across HR and finance workflows) is being cited as a favorable setup with room for a fiscal 2027 guidance raise, but elevated AI-related spending and competitive pressure are weighing on the bottom line even as demand holds up. Trailing EPS growth has been running near 32% over the past year. Read-across matters most against Salesforce, which reported its own AI-monetization debate yesterday; Workday's print is as much a referendum on whether enterprise software broadly can show real AI payback as it is company-specific.

Dollar General opens the day before the bell at $2.01 consensus (range $1.90–$2.10, 20 estimates), an 8.19% implied move against a 6.68% realized average — the smallest implied/realized gap on today's slate, reflecting a stock that has genuinely moved on its prints before. Prior-quarter EPS isn't available to compare, but revenue consensus implies modest sequential growth (up 4% vs prev.Q.), and trailing EPS growth has swung hard — up 34% over the past year but still negative over three and five (-13.8%, -8.4%), even as the ten-year figure is positive (+5.7%) — a business that troughed and has been inflecting. The debate is same-store-sales durability: analysts are looking for a comp in the 2.5%-3.0% range that would extend the recent turnaround, with the bigger question being whether management reaffirms full-year targets (net sales growth 3.7%-4.2%, comp 2.2%-2.7%) given elevated fuel and energy costs that hit its budget-conscious shopper base disproportionately — tariffs look like a secondary concern here versus that consumer-spending-power question. Read-across extends to the broader value-retail complex and low-income consumer health more generally.

Ulta Beauty reports after the close at $6.20 consensus (range $5.93–$6.59, 16 estimates), a 9.11% implied move against a 1.95% realized average — rich pricing — and a 75% beat rate (last surprise +12.0%), the softest track record of today's slate alongside Best Buy's. Sequentially both lines point lower (down 20% vs prev.Q. on EPS, down 6% vs prev.Q. on revenue), which reads as comp deceleration and margin pressure rather than a special base effect. Growth has been uneven across horizons — nearly flat over one and three years (+1.2%, +2.4%) but a standout 52.7% over five and 17.8% over ten — underscoring how much of Ulta's compounding is now behind it rather than ahead. The debate is whether the comp improvement seen in the first quarter (accelerating from the year-ago quarter's pace) is sustainable as prestige-beauty demand and the promotional environment evolve, with the turnaround initiatives (loyalty refresh, international expansion) still a work in progress. Read-across extends to prestige-beauty peers and discretionary spend among younger, largely female shoppers.

Best Buy also reports before the bell, consensus $1.38 (range $1.32–$1.55, 20 estimates), a 9.03% implied move against an 8.2% realized average — the smallest implied/realized gap on today's slate, options priced close to how the stock has actually traded on these prints — and an 88% beat rate (last surprise +4.32%). Revenue consensus implies solid sequential growth (up 7% vs prev.Q.); prior-quarter EPS isn't available to compare. Trailing EPS growth is positive over one and ten years (+17.8%, +7.0%) but still negative over three and five (-7.1%, -5.9%), consistent with a business still working through the post-pandemic demand hangover. The debate is whether the computing-category strength that's been driving comps — an AI-PC and Windows refresh cycle — broadens across categories, and how much tariff mitigation through supply-chain diversification is showing up in gross margin. The print also lands against a scheduled leadership transition, with CEO Corie Barry set to hand off later this year — a backdrop that may color how much of today's commentary leans on strategic continuity versus the quarter itself.

Hormel closes out the morning slate at $0.35 consensus (range $0.34–$0.37, just 8 estimates — the thinnest coverage on today's calendar), a 5.48% implied move against a 4.9% realized average, and the weakest beat rate of the day at 62% (three misses in the last eight prints, though the last one beat by a wide 12.87%). Prior-quarter EPS isn't available; revenue consensus implies only modest sequential growth (up 2% vs prev.Q.). Trailing EPS growth is negative across every horizon — one, three, five and ten years alike (-40.8%, -21.8%, -12.1%, -3.7%) — by far the weakest growth profile on today's slate, reflecting persistent cost and margin pressure in packaged proteins. The debate is whether pricing actions and strength in the protein portfolio (Jennie-O turkey, Applegate, Black Label bacon) and Planters snack nuts/foodservice can keep offsetting soft commodity-turkey and private-label snack-nut trends; with such thin analyst coverage, any signal of stabilization would carry more weight than the headline beat or miss.

Scorecard — reported since we last wrote

Eight names to mark against yesterday's preview, all from Wednesday's software/AI-heavy slate. Nvidia beat on both lines (EPS +6.1%, revenue +4.4%) with reported EPS up 18.7% versus the prior quarter, and shares added another 6.0% after hours — a third straight print where an already richly priced stock still found room to run. CrowdStrike beat similarly (EPS +6.4%, revenue +2.3%, sequential EPS +10.7%) and jumped 10.3% after hours, reinforcing the net-new-ARR reacceleration thesis. Salesforce's headline EPS beat of 80.4% dwarfed its 0.2% revenue beat — a gap wide enough that the print looks driven by items below the operating line more than pure execution — yet shares still rose 9.9% after hours, with sequential EPS up a sharp 52.1% against the prior quarter. Synopsys beat cleanly on both lines (EPS +6.4%, revenue +1.6%, sequential EPS +16.7%) but shares were essentially flat after hours (-0.1%), a reaction that contradicts the surprise and points to lingering Ansys-integration-cost and China export-control caution overshadowing the beat itself. Agilent's steady beat (EPS +9.0%, revenue +2.0%, sequential lines roughly flat) drew a modest 1.3% after-hours pop, in line with a gradual rather than decisive capex-recovery inflection. Veeva's clean beat (EPS +5.8%, revenue +2.5%) lifted shares 5.3% after hours, evidence the Vault migration story remains intact. HP delivered the biggest beat of the batch on both lines (EPS +20.6%, revenue +9.0%) yet shares sank 11.2% after hours — sequential EPS actually fell 3.5% versus the prior quarter, and the sharp reversal despite the headline beat is consistent with the DRAM/memory-cost margin trough flagged into the print outweighing top-line strength: a revenue story, not a margin one. J.M. Smucker's 46.2% EPS beat and 4.2% revenue beat lifted shares 4.3% in the regular session, consistent with the coffee-cost relief thesis playing out as guided.

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