At a glance: 62 S&P 500 names report today — headlined by Eli Lilly, Mastercard, Merck, Caterpillar and Linde before the open, and Amazon, Intel and Sandisk after the close.

A methodology note: for 18 of today’s scorecard names, the reported EPS reflects each company’s headline figure on a slightly different basis than the consensus estimate it is measured against, so no year-on-year change is shown for those names.

The tape ahead

Amazon closes the day after the bell with a split setup: consensus EPS of $1.96 is essentially flat year on year (up 0.5%), even as revenue of $202.26B is expected up a healthy 12.3% — a gap that puts this quarter's debate on margins and spending rather than the top line. The 2026 capex outlook was raised to roughly $220B from $200B on higher memory costs, and the open question is whether that number moves again; trailing free cash flow has turned negative, which keeps the spending conversation live even as AWS growth is expected to hold in the mid-30s on a percentage basis. Margins improved sharply last quarter (gross margin 51.8%, up 3.4 points; net margin 16.7%, up 6.7 points), and whether that holds is the real reconciliation for a muted EPS line next to double-digit revenue growth. The 8.0% implied move is nearly three times Amazon's own 2.8% average swing, against a perfect eight-for-eight beat streak and a 215.1% beat last quarter — an unusually large premium for a name that rarely misses, reflecting the capex and free-cash-flow stakes more than print risk itself. Trailing EPS growth has been strong (29.8% over one year, 28.0% over five, 60.7% over ten). Read-across extends to the broader hyperscaler capex debate and to memory suppliers given Amazon's own cost commentary.

Eli Lilly reports before the open with a headline that looks backwards next to its own business: consensus EPS of $6.61 implies a decline (down 5.8% YoY) even as revenue of $22.84B is expected up 28.5% — a split that traces less to the incretin franchise, which kept accelerating last quarter, than to acquired in-process R&D charges from Lilly's recent dealmaking, which weigh on non-GAAP EPS without reflecting any slowdown in Mounjaro or Zepbound demand. Full-year adjusted EPS guidance was narrowed to $35.50-$36.50, still above Street's prior estimate, and the question for this print is whether international tirzepatide demand is strong enough to support another raise, with pricing-versus-volume the other watch item as Novo Nordisk's own pricing moves pressure the category. Margins back up the split: gross margin expanded to 85.8% (up 3.9 points) while net margin fell 6.5 points to 30.9%, consistent with deal charges rather than operating deterioration. The 6.2% implied move actually sits below Lilly's own 8.0% average swing (beat rate 75%, last surprise +27.3%) — a comparatively cheap straddle given the stock's history of selling off even on beats. Trailing EPS growth has been exceptional (95.9% over one year, 49.3% over three, 27.6% over five, 26.1% over ten). Read-across extends to the GLP-1 complex and to Novo Nordisk on pricing discipline.

Mastercard reports before the open with consensus EPS of $5.17 (up 18.0% YoY) and revenue of $9.66B (up 12.3% YoY) sitting near management's own high-end-of-low-double-digit guide. Cross-border volume growth, which slowed to 12% last quarter from 15% a year earlier, is the swing metric, alongside whether value-added services can hold near its roughly 20% growth pace as that comparison gets tougher; the BVNK stablecoin acquisition was expected to close this quarter as a secondary line item. Margins are already among the strongest in today's docket and still expanding (gross margin 79.0%, up 3.3 points; net margin 47.3%, up 1.1 points). The 2.8% implied move is only modestly above Mastercard's own 2.3% average swing (beat rate 100%, last surprise +5.5%) — the options market pricing this as a low-drama, high-consistency report, in keeping with its history. Trailing EPS growth is a steady double-digit compounder (19.0% over one year, 17.3% over three, 21.0% over five, 17.3% over ten). Read-across extends to Visa, Amex and the broader cross-border-travel and payments complex.

Intel closes the day after the bell with consensus EPS of $0.40 (up 73.9% YoY) and revenue of $16.49B (up 20.8% YoY) sitting above the low end of management's own $15.8-$16.8B guide. Foundry remains the central debate: 18A entered risk production on the timeline management laid out, with yields reported improving sharply from the prior quarter, and the metric to watch is whether Foundry's losses keep narrowing as external volumes ramp, set against still-soft PC demand amid memory constraints and resilient server demand. Margins underline the stakes — gross margin is only modestly positive at 40.4% (up 1.0 point) while net margin remains deeply negative at -68.4%, down a further 41.0 points from the prior quarter — a reminder that the income statement is still absorbing heavy restructuring and foundry-investment costs even as the operating EPS line beats. The 9.2% implied move runs more than three times Intel's own 2.6% average swing (beat rate 75%, last surprise +94.6%) — the largest premium of today's marquee names, reflecting binary uncertainty around the foundry turnaround rather than the core business. Trailing EPS growth is not shown; the recent loss-affected history is too short to compute a clean CAGR. Read-across extends to foundry peers and to PC OEMs and the broader memory-constrained PC supply chain.

Merck reports before the open with consensus EPS of $2.09 (down 19.0% YoY) against revenue of $17.33B that is essentially flat (up 0.3%) — a gap explained by a familiar offset: Keytruda keeps growing while Gardasil sales keep sliding on weak China demand, with 2026 guidance already assuming no Gardasil shipments to China at all. The newer subcutaneous Keytruda Qlex formulation is the mechanism management is counting on to extend the franchise as Keytruda's own patent cliff approaches starting 2028, a positioning question more relevant to commentary than to this quarter's numbers. Margins: gross margin held roughly steady at 73.5% (down 0.7 points), but net margin was deeply negative last quarter at -8.0% even after an 18.0-point improvement from the quarter before — evidence of a sizeable one-off charge still working through the income statement, and this quarter's margin print is the one to watch for a further recovery. The 4.0% implied move runs at roughly 1.7 times Merck's own 2.4% average swing (beat rate 100%, last surprise +49.4%) — a modest premium for growth algebra the Street already understands well. Trailing EPS growth has been solid and accelerating with time (8.1% over one year, 8.4% over three, 21.2% over five, 16.6% over ten). Read-across extends to the broader pharma group on patent-cliff positioning and to China vaccine demand.

Caterpillar reports before the open with consensus EPS of $7.03 (up 42.0% YoY) and revenue of $20.69B (up 17.3% YoY) leveraged increasingly to the AI power buildout: Power Generation sales rose sharply last quarter on data-center demand for large reciprocating engines and turbines, and management has guided to the top end of its 5%-7% full-year sales-growth range. The debate is less about demand than execution and cost — Caterpillar has flagged a roughly $2.6B tariff hit for 2026 — even as the Power & Energy backlog keeps swelling with a growing share of hyperscale data-center orders. Margins are expanding in step (gross margin 36.0%, up 2.9 points; net margin 17.5%, up 2.9 points), consistent with a richer Power Generation mix. The 5.7% implied move sits only modestly above Caterpillar's own 4.8% average swing, but its 62% beat rate is the lowest of today's marquee names (last surprise +31.8%) — a materially less reliable print history than peers, worth weighing against the move. Trailing EPS growth has actually been negative over the past year (-14.7%) even as three-, five- and ten-year growth all remain solidly positive (14.2%, 28.0% and 16.2%) — a reminder that the trailing year has been a trough this quarter's expected jump would start to reverse. Read-across extends to industrial-equipment peers and the broader data-center power-equipment supply chain.

Linde reports before the open with consensus EPS of $4.52 (up 7.4% YoY) and revenue of $9.16B (up 6.4% YoY) sitting a touch below management's own Q3 guide, which was itself framed as 6%-8% EPS growth, and within the full-year adjusted EPS range of $17.70-$17.90. The project backlog is the health check that matters most: Linde's gas backlog has been climbing toward a record high, with management citing robust proposal activity concentrated in electronics end-markets and firm but not-yet-guided helium pricing upside, offset by a flagged U.S. homecare headwind pressuring margins. Margins ticked down slightly in step (gross margin 47.7%, down 0.8 points; net margin 20.8%, down 0.4 points). Linde has no weekly options around this print; the nearest expiry is the November monthly, so the 5.3% straddle spans 22 days rather than pricing the print alone, and shouldn't be read against its own realized-move history the way a same-week straddle would. The beat rate stands at 100% with a last surprise of just +0.3% — among the most reliably in-line reporters in the group. Trailing EPS growth: 7.3% over one year, 21.1% over three, 25.4% over five, 10.6% over ten. Read-across extends to the broader industrial-gas group on electronics demand and helium pricing.

Sandisk closes the day after the bell with consensus EPS of $46.41 (up 3,704.1% YoY) and revenue of $10.70B (up 363.6% YoY) — both flagged against a low year-ago base, and for good reason: a year ago NAND flash was still working through an oversupply trough, while today the same market is in an acute AI-driven shortage, with NAND contract prices reported up sharply this spring and still rising double digits this quarter. The percentages are arithmetically right but say more about how depressed memory pricing was twelve months ago than about a clean growth trajectory. What actually matters for the print: management guided revenue to $10.30-$10.80B and non-GAAP EPS to $44-$46, with Street estimates sitting inside that band, and contracts are said to cover more than half of fiscal 2027 bits — a cushion against a pricing wobble, though not a guarantee, and the stock is already down more than 40% from its June high on exactly that worry. Margins are strong and still improving (gross margin 84.6%, up 6.2 points; net margin 77.0%, up 16.2 points) — about as clean a read on pricing power as a margin line can give. The 8.1% implied move runs at roughly 2.6 times Sandisk's own 3.1% average swing (beat rate 100%, last surprise +13.7%) — a sizeable premium reflecting how binary the pricing debate has become after the stock's pullback. Trailing EPS growth is not shown given the short public history as a standalone company. Read-across extends to the broader memory complex and to AI-infrastructure buyers exposed to rising storage costs.

Also reporting today

Fifty-four more S&P 500 names report alongside today's marquee docket, spanning consumer and travel (Starbucks, Mondelez, Altria, Norwegian Cruise Line), housing (D.R. Horton), healthcare (Gilead, Bristol-Myers, Stryker), and a cluster of AI- and data-adjacent names (Coinbase, Reddit, Twilio, First Solar, Monolithic Power, Digital Realty).

Scorecard — reported since we last wrote

Forty-eight names have scored since our last edition, and the sharpest lesson is how often the reaction ignored the headline. Alphabet missed on both lines (EPS -29.6%, revenue -13.1%, reported EPS down 26.1% YoY) and fell 10.5% after hours — the cleanest miss-and-sell-off of the batch. ServiceNow came in in line with consensus on both EPS and revenue and still fell 18.15% after hours, and Fortinet beat EPS by 5.8% (revenue in line) and still dropped 25.71% — the sharpest reaction of the group despite the headline beat. The same pattern showed up in the regular session: C.H. Robinson beat both lines (EPS +2.9%, revenue +9.0%) and fell 11.14%, while Lennox International missed on EPS (-7.1%) and fell 10.59%. Carvana's surprises pointed in opposite directions — an EPS miss (-11.4%) alongside a revenue beat (+4.4%) — yet shares still rose 7.92% after hours. On the other side, Vertiv's beat (EPS +21.4%, revenue +14.6%) drove the largest positive reaction in the batch, up 16.48%, with Flex (+11.3% EPS beat, up 11.61%) and Labcorp (+3.0% EPS beat, up 8.78%) also richly rewarded. GE Vernova is worth a margin note on its own: reported EPS of $4.81 beat estimates by 20.0% and grew 193.3% YoY, but that comparison runs against a loss-plagued year-ago quarter and isn't a clean growth read — more useful is gross margin, up 3.3 points to 24.57%, and net margin, up 4.2 points to 10.21%, even as the stock still slipped 1.9% in the regular session. Microsoft's beat (EPS +3.6%, revenue +1.7%, reported EPS up 18.4% YoY) drew a comparatively muted 3.1% after-hours gain next to Alphabet reporting the same evening.

Rest of the week

Friday closes the week with the integrated oils and big pharma: ExxonMobil (2.8% implied move) and Chevron report before the open alongside AbbVie (4.2% implied move) and Regeneron, plus a long tail of consumer and utility names — Colgate-Palmolive, Church & Dwight, Kenvue, Dominion Energy, Exelon and LyondellBasell among them. Several of those names — Exxon, Chevron, AbbVie and LyondellBasell — show triple-digit consensus EPS growth against tiny year-ago bases ($1.88, $1.85, $1.86 and $1.01, respectively), which reads as a distorted comparison rather than a genuine inflection and is worth treating with caution against the headline growth rate.

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