October 6, 2026
Bonus Content: S&P 500 Earnings Just Hit the Highest Bar in Two Years. Beats Won’t Be Enough.
Dear Reader,
Institutions own approximately 88% of its shares.
BlackRock reportedly owns 32 million shares worth roughly $716 million. Vanguard owns another 48 million shares worth nearly $1.1 billion.
One major investor nearly doubled its position to 8.2 million shares. And management authorized the repurchase of 40 million shares.
That is not casual interest.
That is serious money surrounding one virtually unknown American company.
So what do they see?
This company generates approximately $3.2 billion in operating income while carrying a market value of only around $8 billion.
It controls a massive American oil and natural gas operation at a moment when AI data centers desperately need reliable electricity.
It has even signed a multi-year, multimillion-dollar agreement with Palantir to use AI to improve equipment reliability, well performance, raw-material use and distribution.
Wall Street knows the name.
Trump publicly defended the company when a major trading partner targeted its profits by raising their taxes.
But Main Street remains largely outside the room.
I believe that information gap creates the opportunity. Once the broader market connects this company’s profits, energy assets and AI relationship, its current valuation could become much harder to justify.
But I refuse to ignore what Wall Street is quietly accumulating.
Click here to learn about the Ultimate Stock Unicorn.
Yours in smart speculation,
Karim Rahemtulla, Head Fundamental Tactician
Monument Traders Alliance
P.S. Institutions control 88% of the shares. BlackRock and Vanguard own tens of millions.
Management authorized a 40-million-share buyback. Main Street may be the last group through the door – click here now to learn about the AI-energy stock Wall Street already knows.
S&P 500 Earnings Just Hit the Highest Bar in Two Years. Beats Won’t Be Enough.
Wall Street just handed itself its toughest grading curve of the cycle, and that changes what traders should be watching this week and next.
FactSet’s October 2 Earnings Insight puts the estimated year-over-year earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 at 29.5% for Q3 2026. If that holds, it marks the third consecutive quarter of growth above 25% and the eighth consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth for the index. That is an impressive streak. It is also the problem.
Here is what makes this season structurally different from the past several: analysts actually increased earnings estimates during the quarter. On a per-share basis, estimated earnings for Q3 rose 1.4% from June 30 to September 30. In a typical quarter, analysts lower estimates. Over the past five years, expectations have fallen by 2.2% on average during the quarter. Companies cooperated too. The percentage of S&P 500 companies issuing positive EPS guidance for Q3 2026 is 62%, well above the 5-year average of 40% and the 10-year average of 41%.
That optimism lifted the bar from 26.7% at the start of the quarter to 29.5% today. Analysts also raised their revenue estimates during the quarter, with expected year-over-year revenue growth now at 12.3%, up from 10.9% on June 30. When both the earnings and revenue bars move higher before a single major report lands, the message is clear: the market has already rewarded much of the good news.
What This Means for This Week’s Reports
Constellation Brands kicks things off today after the close, with analysts expecting roughly $3.55 in EPS on $2.57 billion in revenue. The company has been navigating volume softness in its beer business alongside tariff headwinds. A beat matters less than what management says about full-year beer demand.
Lamb Weston reported this morning. The market was expecting essentially flat revenue year-over-year, matching what the company posted in the same quarter last year. The stock has been under pressure, down about 11.7% over the past month heading into the report, with an average analyst price target of $54.33 against a recent share price around $43.63. With expectations low and the bar pre-cleared, the reaction will hinge entirely on forward volume outlook, not on whether EPS cleared a depressed hurdle.
Delta reports Friday, October 9. Analyst sentiment has deteriorated notably in the near term: the consensus EPS estimate fell 10.9% over the past 30 days, dropping from $2.11 to $1.88, suggesting growing caution about fare environments, capacity additions, or cost pressures that emerged through the summer months. Premium travel demand and loyalty revenue are supportive, but fuel costs and recent downward EPS revisions are the counterweight. A beat against a lowered bar is not the trade. The question is whether management restores confidence in Q4 unit revenue.
Then JPMorgan on October 13. The bank enters its Q3 release with an 82.5% market-implied probability of beating consensus, supported by eight consecutive quarterly beats and management’s mid-September guidance for investment-banking fees and markets revenue to rise in the mid-to-high teens year-over-year. The stock sat 9.3% below its 52-week high of $366.50 as of early October. An EPS beat alone probably does not close that gap. Key investor focus will be on the durability of capital markets outperformance, deposit and loan growth, expense leverage, and any early signs of credit normalization.
The Trader’s Lesson
When analysts and companies collectively raise estimates before a season opens, they compress the margin for positive surprise. The 29.5% growth rate is already in the price for most names that have run. What moves stocks from here is not the reported number but the tone of guidance, particularly any language that signals whether the cycle’s earnings momentum can hold into 2027.
Watching how Delta and JPMorgan respond in the first hour after their reports is a proxy for the whole season’s mood. A beat with cautious guidance and a stock that fades tells you more about the next six weeks than the headline growth rate ever could.