=== 1. INTEL (INTC) ===
Intel's Q2 revenue rose 25% Y/Y to $16.1 billion ($1.7 billion beat), and non-GAAP EPS was $0.42 ($0.20 beat), against a $0.10 loss a year ago. CEO Lip-Bu Tan called it the strongest revenue growth in more than fifteen years.
Intel lost $10.8 billion on paper because its own stock price went up so fast that it made the free shares it promised the US government way more expensive to give away.
INTC has nearly tripled this year but sits close to 30% below its June 22 high. The stock was caught in a sector-wide rotation out of chip stocks as Wall Street questions whether AI hardware spending is sustainable.
Data Center and AI revenue climbed 59% Y/Y to $6.3 billion, more than double Intel's overall growth rate, as agentic workloads pull the stack back toward CPUs. Client Computing rose 13% Y/Y to $8.9 billion against an $8.0 billion consensus, with AI PCs now two-thirds of the client mix. Foundry grew 31% Y/Y to $5.8 billion, accelerating from 16% last quarter, and adjusted gross margin hit 41.8%, roughly 280 basis points above guidance.
CFO Dave Zinsner said rising memory prices will hit the PC business in the coming quarters, and management already expects sub-seasonal PC consumption in the second half. Intel is spending into that anyway, raising 2026 CapEx from $18 billion to more than $20 billion. Management expects 2027 CapEx to be significantly higher.
Foundry's growth is still mostly internal. The segment sells almost entirely to Intel's own product groups, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan wouldn't name external customers, pointing to early next year for visible progress.
Q3 guidance of $15.8–16.8 billion implies a midpoint roughly $1.2 billion above consensus, with EPS of $0.38 (vs. ~$0.27 expected) and gross margin of 42% (vs. ~40% consensus). Zinsner said Intel can sell every data center chip it makes, 18A yields are running ahead of plan, and 14A will move to volume production in 2028.
Client Computing is the segment to watch in Q3, when higher memory costs hit PC pricing.
=== 2. GE VERNOVA (GEV) ===
GE Vernova's Q2 revenue rose 22% Y/Y to $11.1 billion ($330 million beat), but EPS of $2.47 missed by $0.71 and adjusted EBITDA of $1.25 billion came in under the $1.28 billion consensus.
Management left the EBITDA margin band untouched at 12%–14% while announcing plans to lift gas turbine capacity to 30 GW annually by 2030 from about 20 GW today. Timing could be a problem, because GE Vernova is committing to capacity that arrives years from now.
The demand data today supports the capacity bet. Orders hit $24.2 billion, up 88% organically, for a book-to-bill above 2x. Backlog reached $176 billion, up $13 billion sequentially, with nearly half of it slated for 2029 or later.
Power rose 14% to $5.5 billion. Gas gigawatts under contract climbed from 100 to 116 in a single quarter, and CEO Scott Strazik now expects at least 125 GW by year-end. Wind's EBITDA loss widened to $275 million from $165 million, with revenue down 10%. Management still guides to roughly $400 million of full-year losses and won't call an inflection in US orders. Electrification revenue jumped 68% to $3.6 billion on $2.7 billion of data center orders.
FY26 Free cash flow guidance nearly doubled to $11.5–12.5 billion (from $6.5–7.5 billion), but roughly $10 billion of that was already booked in the first half. Q2 alone leaned on a $6.4 billion working capital benefit as customers prepaid for production slots.
FY26 revenue guidance rose to $45.5–46.5 billion (vs. ~$45.4 billion consensus), the second raise this year. But roughly $10 billion of the $11.5–12.5 billion free cash flow guide is already banked, leaving $1.5–2.5 billion for the entire second half. Q2 alone leaned on a $6.4 billion working capital benefit as customers prepaid for production slots, which won't repeat in future quarters.
=== 3. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS (TXN) ===
Texas Instruments' Q2 revenue rose 23% Y/Y to a record $5.5 billion ($220 million beat), up 13% sequentially, and EPS was $2.14 ($0.20 beat). Shares fell about 4% anyway after a 70% rally this year, tracking the semiconductor ETF almost perfectly.
Analog jumped 26% to $4.4 billion and Embedded rose 16% to $788 million. Industrial grew about 30%, data center doubled, and automotive finally inflected at mid-teens growth after two flat quarters, led by China EVs and hybrids where customer inventories had run down to almost nothing.
Gross margin was 61% this quarter on volume alone. Operating margin hit 42%, up from 35% a year ago.
Three things behind the headline:
Pricing hasn't contributed yet. TI has started customer-by-customer increases, mostly on the Analog side, but CEO Haviv Ilan called the Q3 contribution "almost insignificant," with a step-up expected in Q4. Every basis point of margin expansion so far came from volume and utilization.
Personal electronics is the soft spot. Component shortages are squeezing TI's own customers, and Ilan expects the segment to grow sequentially at a lower rate than the seasonal norm.
Free cash flow is artificially boosted. Trailing FCF of $6.5 billion was up 55%, but $1.6 billion of it was CHIPS Act money. CFO Rafael Lizardi warned ITC payments are choppy and that assembly and test CapEx outside the US doesn't qualify.
Q3 guidance of $5.65–6.15 billion (vs. ~$5.6 billion consensus) and EPS of $2.23–2.57 (vs. ~$2.18 consensus) implies a ninth straight above-seasonal quarter. CapEx stays at $2–3 billion for FY26, likely the high end, against $4.55 billion last year. Julie Knecht takes over as CFO on August 1 with Lizardi retiring at month-end.
=== 4. AMERICAN EXPRESS (AXP) ===
Amex's Q2 revenue rose 10% Y/Y to $19.6 billion ($60 million miss), and EPS rose 11% Y/Y to $4.53 ($0.13 beat).
The miss itself was small, but the stock dropped with signs of deceleration: network volume growth slowed from 11% to 9% in Q1, billed business from 10% to 9%, and new card acquisitions came in at 3.0 million against 3.1 million in both Q1 and the year-ago quarter.
The premium engine still works: Net card fees grew 15% to $2.9 billion, with the refreshed Platinum portfolio now the fastest-growing in the US consumer business. Card member spending rose 9% on an FX-adjusted basis, the best in three years, with restaurants up 10% and travel bookings up 22%. 65% of new consumer accounts came from Millennials and Gen Z, extending the demographic shift Squeri has been building toward.
The revenue miss traces to net interest income of $4.7 billion, which slipped sequentially even as card balances grew to $218.1 billion. Consolidated expenses rose 12% to $14.5 billion, outpacing revenue on Platinum refresh costs and heavier benefit usage. Provisions fell to $1.1 billion from $1.4 billion, but net write-offs were higher.
Amex thinks the Q2 miss was temporary and raised FY26 revenue growth guidance to 10% from 9%–10%, which implies roughly $79.5 billion and lands exactly on consensus. EPS guidance held at $17.30–$17.90 (vs. $17.69 consensus) as CEO Stephen Squeri reinvests the upside into technology, acquisition costs, and the proposed purchase of TheFork, a European booking platform that adds 50,000 restaurants to the dining network.
Management guided card fee growth to accelerate into the high teens in the second half. It ran 15% this quarter, so that's the number to check in Q3.
=== 5. T-MOBILE US (TMUS) ===
T-Mobile's Q2 revenue rose 8% Y/Y to $22.8 billion ($150 million miss) while GAAP EPS rose 5% to $2.99 ($0.39 beat).
It was the first quarter in a while where guidance didn't rise across the board, and the only lines that went up were cash flow, lifted by lower cash income taxes rather than operations.
The metric CEO Srini Gopalan inaugurated last quarter is decelerating. Postpaid net account additions of 277,000 fell 13% Y/Y, though they still cleared the ~272,000 estimate. ARPA (Average Revenue Per Account) grew just 2% to $153, down from 4% in Q1, which matters because ARPA was the whole argument for retiring postpaid phone net adds.
Postpaid service revenue still rose 13% to $15.9 billion and core adjusted EBITDA climbed 12% to $9.5 billion, both industry-leading.
Two things likely contributed to the stock falling 10% after the print: CFO Peter Osvaldik guided Q3 to roughly 250,000 account adds, below Q2, and warned that retiring legacy rate plans will temporarily elevate account churn. AT&T reported 432,000 postpaid phone net adds two days earlier. T-Mobile stopped publishing that figure in Q1, so there's no direct comparison.
T-Mobile slightly raised adjusted free cash flow full-year guidance to $18.4–18.8 billion and operating cash flow to $28.4–28.8 billion, while reiterating postpaid net accounts of 950,000–1.05 million, core adjusted EBITDA of $37.1–37.5 billion, and ~$10 billion of capex. Full-year ARPA growth is now expected at the high end of 2.5%–3%.
After 494,000 accounts in the first half and ~250,000 guided for Q3, T-Mobile needs 200,000–300,000 in Q4 to land inside its own full-year range, with churn elevated by its own pricing changes.
=== 6. IBM (IBM) ===
IBM's Q2 revenue rose 1% Y/Y to $17.2 billion ($60 million miss) and adjusted EPS of $2.93 landed roughly in line.
The print itself barely moved the stock because the damage was already done. IBM preannounced on July 14, only the second time in company history after 2008, and shares fell 25% in a day, the worst single-session drop it has ever had and about $70 billion in market value. The stock closed down 31% year-to-date and at its lowest since November 2024.
The mainframe is the whole story. IBM Z revenue fell 42% after surging 51% in Q1, pulling Infrastructure down 7% to $3.8 billion. CEO Arvind Krishna's explanation is that clients abruptly redirected budget toward servers, storage, and memory to lock in AI infrastructure ahead of expected price increases, and IBM misjudged the magnitude. Software grew 5% to $7.8 billion but missed the ~$8.0 billion consensus, and Consulting was flat at $5.3 billion.
Management's defense rests on timing rather than demand: Tens of large deals slipped instead of dying, and roughly one-third have already closed in Q3. Krishna said there is no evidence of clients moving off the mainframe. Free cash flow guidance held at about $1 billion of Y/Y growth, protected by cuts to third-party tech spending, supply chain, and admin costs, with headcount flat for the year.
Starbucks is replacing vendor software, including IBM's, with in-house tools. CFO James Kavanaugh put the exposed contract at roughly $2 million a year and argued most IBM software sits too close to client infrastructure and data to be swapped out.
IBM cut FY26 constant-currency revenue growth to 4%–5% (from more than 5%), with software guided to 6%–8%. Evercore called that better than feared, which tells you where expectations had landed. The company also committed more than $10 billion to quantum over five years and agreed to acquire HRL Laboratories, the Boeing and GM research venture, closing by the end of Q3.
Watch Infrastructure in Q3 for whether the remaining two-thirds of slipped deals actually close.
=== 7. VERIZON (VZ) ===
Verizon's Q2 revenue fell 1% Y/Y to $34.3 billion ($860 million miss) while adjusted EPS rose 7% Y/Y to $1.30 ($0.03 beat). Shares are up more than 10% this year while AT&T and T-Mobile are both down.
The revenue miss was primarily because CEO Dan Schulman pulled back on device subsidies. Equipment revenue dropped nearly 20%, more than $1.2 billion, as upgrade volumes fell 27%. Mobility and broadband service revenue grew 3% to $23.4 billion across Consumer and Business, landing inside the 2%–3% range that was Q1's open question.
The subscriber gains came with less spending behind them: 184,000 postpaid phone net adds, the best consumer Q2 in five years, with consumer postpaid phone churn at 84 basis points. 348,000 broadband net adds (193,000 fixed wireless, 155,000 fiber), pushing first-half mobility and broadband additions above 1 million, more than double last year.
Adjusted EBITDA rose 7% to a record $13.7 billion at a 40% margin, and free cash flow jumped 24% to $6.4 billion. Verizon is cutting roughly 3,000 jobs while handing hundreds of retail stores to franchisees, and CFO Anthony Skiadas said promo amortization has peaked but eases only gradually.
Guidance rose for a second straight quarter: service revenue growth to 2.5%–3% (previously 2%–3%), adjusted EPS to $4.99–$5.04 (from $4.95–$4.99).
But most of the performance is ahead. Verizon has 239,000 postpaid phone net adds through two quarters against a full-year guide of 875,000 to 1 million. The second half of FY26 has to deliver roughly three times more postpaid phone net adds than the first.
Schulman disclosed a $1 billion-plus dark fiber deal with Google for data center connectivity, with more expected by year-end, though he put meaningful AI infrastructure revenue in 2027. The board extended his contract through 2028.
=== 8. CHARLES SCHWAB (SCHW) ===
Schwab's Q2 net revenue rose 21% Y/Y to $7.1 billion ($0.2 billion beat) and adjusted EPS surged 42% Y/Y to $1.62 ($0.07 beat). Expenses came in at $3.40 billion against a $3.38 billion consensus, and management raised its expense outlook alongside revenue.
The market is treating a volatility-fueled quarter as cyclical earnings it won't pay a higher multiple for.
Clients traded relentlessly. Daily average trades hit a record 12 million, up 57% Y/Y, pushing trading revenue to $1.2 billion (+28%). Wurster said volume runs 3.5x heavier on down days, with clients making smaller and more frequent buys rather than big directional bets. June's SpaceX IPO produced one of the busiest days in the firm's 55-year history.
The inflows were just as strong, though clients leaned harder on borrowing: Core net new assets soared 49% Y/Y to $119.8 billion, with a record June haul of $62.7 billion despite tax-season outflows. Total client assets rose 22% Y/Y to $13.08 trillion, with 1.4 million new brokerage accounts during the quarter. Margin loan balances surged 30% in a single quarter to $165.1 billion. That's clients borrowing from Schwab to buy more stock, which earns Schwab interest. It also unwinds fast when markets drop.
Schwab lifted FY26 revenue growth guidance to 17.5%–18.5% (from 14%–15%) and expense growth to 9.5%–10.5% (from 8.5%–9.5%), with roughly 300 basis points of the latter tied directly to trading volumes. Adjusted pretax margin hit 54.3%, up from 50.1% a year ago.
Q3 could show whether Schwab keeps the margin gains once trading volumes cool off.
=== 9. AT&T (T) ===
AT&T's Q2 revenue rose 2% Y/Y to $31.6 billion ($250 million miss) while adjusted EPS surged 20% Y/Y to $0.65 ($0.06 beat).
The revenue shortfall didn't matter because the subscriber numbers landed. After months of SpaceX-entering-wireless fear, AT&T posted 432,000 postpaid phone net adds against roughly 325,000 expected, with churn at 0.86%.
AT&T added over 1 million Advanced Connectivity customers, including 646,000 internet net adds split between 367,000 fiber and 279,000 fixed wireless. Advanced Connectivity service revenue grew 5% to $23.5 billion, accelerating 150 basis points from Q1, and segment operating income jumped 20% to $7.3 billion. Free cash flow of $4.7 billion cleared the high end of management's own $4.0–4.5 billion guide.
The cost of winning on volume shows up elsewhere: Fiber ARPU fell 1% Y/Y on a full quarter of Lumen, and CFO Pascal Desroches warned convergence discounts will keep pressuring it. Legacy service revenue dropped 26%, and legacy EBITDA fell 46% as the copper shutdown accelerates.
Guidance held across the board: adjusted EPS of $2.25–$2.35, free cash flow above $18 billion, EBITDA growth of 3%–4%. What moved was capital return, with the 2026 buyback raised to roughly $10 billion from $8 billion, a decision CEO John Stankey tied directly to the stock being undervalued. Desroches guided Q3 free cash flow to be roughly flat Y/Y with the growth backloaded into Q4.
Fiber ARPU will be the main item to watch in Q3. If it's still falling after Lumen laps, AT&T is buying subscribers with price cuts.
=== 10. LOCKHEED MARTIN (LMT) ===
Lockheed's Q2 revenue rose 11% Y/Y to $20.1 billion ($730 million beat) and GAAP EPS was $7.94 ($0.74 beat). Shares jumped 11%. The stock had fallen roughly 22% since fighting began in Iran, on fears that defense budgets peak once a Democratic House arrives after the midterms.
The order book was the real headline. Lockheed booked $65 billion of new orders for a 3.2:1 book-to-bill, lifting backlog to a record $230 billion from $186 billion just one quarter ago. The multi-year THAAD interceptor award drove most of it, tied to a preliminary $35 billion Pentagon commitment. All four segments grew, led by Missiles and Fire Control at 19% on THAAD, PAC-3 and Precision Strike.
Free cash flow swung to $2.9 billion from negative $150 million a year ago, erasing Q1's cash burn.
CapEx followed a different pattern than Big Tech: The free cash flow increase was due to lower CapEx, not operations. Cash from operations guidance held at $9.2–9.4 billion while CapEx guidance dropped about $450 million, which is precisely the amount free cash flow went up. That CapEx cut sits oddly beside the story management tells about building ahead of orders, with new munitions plants in Troy and Courtland, Alabama meant to hold surge capacity before contracts land.
FY26 guidance rose across every line: sales of $79.75–81.75 billion (vs. $79.1 billion consensus), EPS of $29.95–30.65 (vs. ~$29.90 consensus), segment operating profit of $8.5–8.7 billion, and free cash flow of $7.0–7.2 billion.
Lockheed also agreed to buy Ultra Maritime for undersea sensing and signed an MOU with Rheinmetall to produce ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) in Europe.
With orders running better than three times deliveries, demand stopped being the constraint. Management promised growth would accelerate in the back half, so watch whether revenue actually speeds up or the backlog just keeps swelling because the factories can't move fast enough.
=== 11. SERVICENOW (NOW) ===
ServiceNow's Q2 revenue rose 24% Y/Y to $4.0 billion ($50 million beat) and adjusted EPS grew 10% Y/Y to $0.90 ($0.04 beat). The stock is still down more than 3% year-to-date.
Nobody is disputing the growth, but the market is discounting the durability of seat-based revenue in a world where agents handle the tickets that used to require licensed humans.
The quarter itself gave that thesis little to work with. cRPO (next 12 months) grew 21% Y/Y to $13.2 billion against total RPO of $29 billion, and ServiceNow closed 123 deals above $1 million in net new ACV, up nearly 40% Y/Y. AI ACV crossed $1 billion, tracking toward the $1.5 billion year-end target McDermott set last quarter. Agentic deployments are up ninefold in nine months, and the renewal rate held at 98%. Federal demand pulled some on-premise subscription revenue forward.
Three things will keep the market skeptical:
Q3 subscription revenue came a bit short, with guidance of $3.975–3.980 billion below the ~$4.01 billion consensus, a rare miss for a company that has beaten for five straight quarters.
The pricing model is mid-transition. Hybrid seat-plus-consumption billing is diluting gross margin, and full-year adjusted gross margin guidance ticked lower even as adjusted operating margin held at 31.5%.
The M&A strategy is costly. ServiceNow completed its $7.75 billion acquisition of Armis in April, which is polluting margins. The $4 billion short-term loan funding the April purchase adds interest expense and matures in October, and management says the drag continues into Q3.
FY26 subscription revenue guidance rose to $15.76–15.78 billion (vs. ~$15.75 billion consensus), a narrow raise at the bottom end. McDermott is pitching ServiceNow as the AI Control Tower and the governance layer every enterprise needs. The most encouraging number is the 98% renewal rate, which doesn't fit the bear case.
=== 12. MOODY'S (MCO) ===
Moody's Q2 revenue rose 15% Y/Y to $2.2 billion ($110 million beat) and adjusted EPS surged 31% Y/Y to $4.68 ($0.43 beat). Adjusted operating margin expanded 440 basis points to 55%.
Management trimmed full-year operating margin guidance to 44%–45% (from ~45%) and framed the quarter as timing rather than acceleration. CFO Noémie Heuland said a record June pulled issuance forward, leaving Moody's "right where we thought we were going to be."
MIS did the heavy lifting. Transaction revenue jumped 34%, with more than $2 trillion of debt rated for the second straight quarter and segment adjusted operating margin at 68%. Moody's Analytics grew 8% on an organic constant-currency basis (4% reported), with ARR up 9% to ~$3.7 billion and 95% retention. CEO Rob Fauber cautioned against extrapolating any acceleration and reiterated high-single-digit ARR growth. Recurring revenue now makes up 99% of MA.
The caveats all point the same way: Mix is getting thinner. Big investment-grade deals from frequent issuers carry lower yields, so rated volume growth doesn't convert one-for-one into revenue. Management raised its issuance outlook to mid-single-digit growth but left MIS revenue guidance unchanged, which is about as clear a statement as you'll get that volume and revenue have decoupled. Second-half comps tighten after the June pull-forward, and Heuland warned the trajectory "may not be linear."
Guidance narrowed to adjusted EPS of $16.50–$17.00, lifting the midpoint to $16.75 (vs. $16.78 consensus), with revenue growth still in the high single digits. Free cash flow guidance was up ~$100 million to $2.7–2.9 billion, and the restructuring program extended through 2027 for $300–350 million in annualized savings.
=== 13. GENERAL MOTORS (GM) ===
GM's Q2 revenue rose 2% Y/Y to $48.0 billion ($0.9 billion beat) and adjusted EPS of $3.57 ($0.39 beat). Adjusted EBIT margin widened 0.3 points to 8.2% even as first-half deliveries fell 7%. Shares closed up 5%, as investors focused on the guidance raise.
Full-size pickups carried the performance. GM held more than 42% of the US full-size pickup market through the first half and gained share year-over-year, with dealer inventory kept tight at 511,000 units and roughly 55 days of supply. Warranty relief helped too, worth about $500 million in the first half. CFO Paul Jacobson raised that full-year tailwind from $1 billion to $1–1.5 billion.
Software and services keep compounding quietly, with 1 million new subscriptions for Super Cruise and OnStar expected this year and deferred revenue of $6.3 billion heading toward $7.5 billion.
GM continued to unwind its EV buildout with $2.3 billion in EV charges, bringing the total to $10.9 billion since mid-2025. Jacobson says the material cash charges are now substantially complete. As a result, GAAP net income guidance was cut again to $8.4–9.8 billion.
GM raised FY26 adjusted EBIT to $14–16 billion (vs. $14.8 billion consensus) and adjusted EPS to $12–14 (vs. ~$12.8 consensus), the second raise this year. Q4 will run below normal seasonality, with roughly 35,000 fewer units year-over-year and higher launch costs. Management bought back $2 billion worth of company stock, and the share count is now below 900 million, down from 960 million a year ago.
North America margin is the number to watch. Q2 hit 8.6%, helped by tight inventory and a warranty tailwind that won't repeat at this size.
=== 14. DOMINO'S PIZZA (DPZ) ===
Domino's Q2 revenue rose 4% Y/Y to $1.2 billion ($10 million beat) while GAAP EPS was down 1% Y/Y to $4.07 ($0.10 miss). The stock has struggled and is still down roughly 23% year-to-date.
US same-store sales grew just 0.1%, the weakest in five quarters and short of the ~0.6% consensus.
But the miss was due to ticket, not traffic. Order counts rose meaningfully across both delivery and carryout, offset by a lower average check that management pinned on lapping Stuffed Crust and a premium series that, in CEO Russel Weiner's words, "missed on this one." He said the ticket drag was "largely within our control." Management sees a messaging and mix problem, not a demand problem, which is the more fixable of the two.
Domino's now claims the #1 pizza spot on both Uber and DoorDash, and management insists its scale lead over competitors is the widest it's ever been. International comps slipped 0.1% (ex-FX), with Domino's Pizza Enterprises still the drag as it sheds lower-margin transactions.
Domino's held its full-year outlook intact: US and international comps up low single digits (vs. ~1.3% and ~1.0% consensus), global retail sales up mid-single digits, operating income up mid-to-high single digits. A new product Weiner called "unlike anything we've offered before" will land this quarter, aimed at what customers buy when they don't buy pizza.
=== 15. AMERICAN AIRLINES (AAL) ===
American posted record revenue of $16.7 billion, up 16% Y/Y ($50 million beat), and adjusted EPS of $0.15 ($0.10 beat), down from $0.95 a year ago. Shares fell as much as 9%, the worst day in a year, with the stock down 24% this month.
CFO Devon May said American was tracking toward roughly $1.5 billion in FY26 pretax profit three weeks ago. Fuel expectations for the back half have jumped almost $1.6 billion since.
Premium unit revenue rose more than 13%, managed corporate revenue climbed 26% for a fifth straight quarter, and AAdvantage enrollment hit a record on the new Citi co-brand. Nearly 60% of revenue comes from households earning $150,000 or more. American offset almost half of a $2.2 billion fuel increase through fares, holding non-fuel unit costs under 3% while total unit costs rose 17%.
What's working against it: Fuel costs spiked 83% Y/Y with crude above $100, and the full-year headwind approaches $6 billion. Q3 capacity growth was trimmed by about two points to 3%–5%, which caps the revenue that offsets fuel.
FY26 guidance dropped to a loss of $0.65 to a profit of $0.65 (vs. ~$0.60 profit consensus), the second cut in three months. In contrast, Delta reaffirmed full-year guidance, and United guided up.
CEO Robert Isom has rebuffed United's merger overtures, betting the premium and loyalty build can close the gap with Delta and United on its own. But every fuel-driven cut makes that case harder to argue.
=== 16. AMC ENTERTAINMENT (AMC) ===
AMC turned in the best quarter in its 106-year history. Revenue rose 14% Y/Y to $1.6 billion ($100 million beat), and adjusted EBITDA jumped 70% to a record $321 million, cracking $300 million in a quarter for the first time. Shares soared about 27% after the print. And for once, the move was based on fundamentals, not memes.
Attendance rose 14% against a domestic box office of $3.0 billion, the biggest quarter in seven years thanks to Toy Story 5 and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
But the main story was operating leverage. AMC outperformed the market with domestic revenue up 13% versus the industry's 11%. Roughly 66% of incremental revenue flowed through to EBITDA, lifting the adjusted margin 0.7 points to 20%. Europe was the standout, with EBITDA up 337% to $36 million on an 18% attendance gain. Premium formats did the heavy lifting.
Management pressed its advantage on the balance sheet, refinancing $400 million of 2027 debt, converting $156 million of 2030 notes into equity, and clearing meaningful maturities until 2029.
Two things to watch for the rest of the year: Cost discipline may not hold. CEO Adam Aron cautioned he doesn't expect the same expense containment going forward, and a $6 million insurance credit flattered G&A this quarter. Free cash flow still hinges on the movie slate. AMC needs roughly $10 billion in annual domestic box office to stay FCF-positive over twelve months, and it isn't there yet.
AMC raised 2026 net CapEx to $200–235 million (from $175–225 million), mostly for premium auditoriums, and set a new ~3x leverage target. Management admitted CapEx is "very box office dependent," and Q3 working capital typically runs negative. The Odyssey's record $124 million domestic opening lands in Q3, and "Dunesday" arrives December 18 with Dune Part Three and Avengers: Doomsday sharing the same release date.
=== FOOTER ===
Author's Note (Bertrand): views are his own, not financial advice.
Disclosure: "I own NOW in App Economy Portfolio. I share my ratings (BUY, SELL, or HOLD) with App Economy Portfolio members."