Previewing Mag 7 Earnings: What Investors Should Know
We get into the heart of the Q1 earnings season this week, with more than 800 companies reporting results, including five of the Magnificent 7 members and almost a third of S&P 500 members. We have Microsoft MSFT, Meta Platform META, and Alphabet GOOGL on deck to report results on Wednesday, October 29th, and Apple AAPL and Amazon AMZN on Thursday, October 30th.
With Tesla’s results already out, only Nvidia remains to report Q3 results, which are scheduled for November 19th.
The Mag 7 stocks as a group have performed roughly in line with the market this year, though Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft have done much better, while Amazon and Apple have lagged, as the year-to-date performance chart below shows.
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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Except for Apple, the four Mag 7 members reporting this week are all leaders in the artificial intelligence space and are actively investing in setting up data centers and related infrastructure to run large language models.
A big marker in the AI debate around these companies has been the ever-rising level of capital expenditures, a race from which Apple has been missing in action, helping explain a big part of the stock’s recent underperformance.
Alphabet shares have enjoyed favorable momentum lately. A positive conclusion to the DOJ’s case has been the primary catalyst, but Alphabet’s last two quarterly reports were also very strong.
The market will be focused on the company’s cloud business, where improved capacity is expected to build on the acceleration seen in the last quarterly report. Management’s commentary around the cloud business was very positive in July, likely indicative of a very favorable demand backdrop and some market share gains. The technical challenges faced by Amazon’s AWS clients in recent days were after the Q3 reporting period, but will also likely come up on the earnings calls.
One perennial market worry about Alphabet is the outlook for the search business in the emerging AI world, with many in the market concerned that Alphabet may not be able to sustain its dominance of this lucrative space. Alphabet’s July results went some ways towards easing those worries, but a strong showing this time will consolidate those gains.
Looking at Q3 expectations for the group as a whole, the expectation is that Mag 7 earnings will increase +11.9% in 2025 Q3 from the same period last year on +15.3% higher revenues. These expectations are a blend of Tesla’s actual results and estimates for the remaining six, of which five are on deck to report this week.
The chart below shows the group’s 2025 Q3 earnings and revenue growth expectations in the context of what was achieved in the preceding period and what is expected in the coming three quarters.
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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The chart below shows the Mag 7 group’s earnings and revenue growth picture on an annual basis.
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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The group has been enjoying a steadily improving earnings outlook, with analysts raising their estimates. We saw that trend in play ahead of the start of the Q3 earnings season, and something similar is in place for 2025 Q4 as well.
Q3 Earnings Season Scorecard
Including all reports released through Friday, October 24th, we now have Q3 results from 145 S&P 500 members, or 29% of the index’s total membership. Total earnings for these companies are up +14.9% from the same period last year on +7.8% higher revenues, with 86.9% beating EPS estimates and 82.1% beating revenue estimates.
The comparison charts below put the Q3 earnings and revenue growth rates from these companies in a historical context.
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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The comparison charts below show the Q3 EPS and revenue beats percentages in a historical context.
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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
For the Finance sector, we now have Q3 results for 58.6% of the sector’s market capitalization in the S&P 500 index. Total earnings for these Finance companies are up +22.7% from the same period last year on +11.9% higher revenues, with 97.5% beating EPS estimates and 87.5% beating revenue estimates.
The proportion of these Finance sector companies beating both EPS and revenue estimates (‘blended’ beats percentage) is 87.5%. The comparison charts below show the sector’s Q3 revenue growth performance across recent quarters and the sector’s Q3 ‘blended’ beats percentage.
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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Earnings Big Picture
The chart below shows current Q3 earnings and revenue growth expectations for the S&P 500 index in the context of the preceding four quarters and the coming four quarters.
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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Please note that the +7.8% earnings growth rate for Q3 shown above represents the blended growth rate for the quarter, which combines the actual results for the 145 companies that have reported with estimates for the still-to-come companies.
The chart below shows the overall earnings picture on a calendar-year basis.
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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
In terms of S&P 500 index ‘EPS’, these growth rates approximate to $257.83 for 2025 and $290.48 for 2026.
For a detailed view of the evolving earnings picture, please check out our weekly Earnings Trends report here >>>>Finance Sector Gives Flying Start to Q3 Earnings Season
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
