Q3 Earnings Scorecard: Beat Rates, Guidance and Valuation at the 9% Mark
Matt Hardy
With 9% of S&P 500 companies reported, 84% have beaten EPS estimates and blended Q3 growth sits near 29%. A look at beat rates, sector gaps, guidance and valuation as…
2026
10-Year Treasury Near 5%: What Moves Yields and Mortgages
The 10-year Treasury yield ranged from 5.09% to 5.31% in early October while 30-year mortgages sat at 7.40%. A look at what drives yields and what the rate gap means…
September Retail Sales Jump 0.8%, but Gas Prices Flatter the Headline
US retail sales rose 0.8% in September, well above the 0.3% economists expected, but sales excluding gas stations rose only 0.2%. Here is how to read the report, and why…
How Buybacks Lift EPS: The Share-Count Math Behind Reported Earnings
Repurchases raise earnings per share by shrinking the denominator. A simple worked example and real 2026 figures from JPMorgan and Boston Scientific show how large the effect can be and…
Fed Oct. 27-28 Meeting: What Markets Are Pricing In
Prediction markets put the odds of a Fed hold at about 87% for the Oct. 27-28 meeting, with a quarter-point hike near 14%. Here is the backdrop, the data in…
How Accelerated Share Repurchases Work: Lessons From 2026 ASR Deals
Accelerated share repurchases deliver most shares up front and settle later. Boston Scientific's $2 billion and Cognizant's $500 million 2026 deals show how the mechanics and disclosures work in practice.
Inside Apple’s 2026 Buyback: $61.8 Billion Repurchased in Nine Months
Apple's latest 10-Q shows 215 million shares repurchased for $61.8 billion in nine months, alongside $11.7 billion in dividends. A data-first look at how the capital return program compares with…
JPMorgan Cuts Q3 Buybacks 84% as Capital Ratio Slips to 13.9%
JPMorgan's third-quarter 2026 gross buybacks fell 84% from Q2 to about $1.06 billion while its CET1 ratio eased to 13.9%. Here is what the filings-based numbers show, and what they…
September CPI: Gasoline Drives a 3.7% Inflation Reading
The September CPI rose 0.6% on the month and 3.7% over 12 months, with a 9.1% jump in gasoline doing most of the work while core inflation held at 2.6%.…
September Jobs Report: Hiring Slows to 29,000 as Unemployment Rises to 4.2%
US employers added just 29,000 jobs in September while unemployment rose to 4.2%, and July and August were revised down by 60,000. Here is what the BLS data shows about…