Haymaker Daily Mean Reversion, Mean Indeed
Hello, Haymakers:
There is no question that S&P 500 earnings have been spectacular this year. Per ZeroHedge — which some deride as the financial equivalent of the National Enquirer, but we find a frequent source of interesting factoids — they've been the strongest since 1955. That was of course during the peak of the American post-WWII high and the interstate highway construction boom. Civilian atomic energy was also just lifting off, promising an era of cheap and nearly limitless power.
[Chart — ZeroHedge: S&P 500 earnings growth, the strongest since 1955]
Yet, as prior Haymaker Dailies have conveyed, the current earnings explosion has enjoyed a tremendous tailwind from the AI spending frenzy. In particular, profits at the big hyperscalers like Alphabet/Google (GOOG) have been greatly flattered by gains on share ownership in their largest AI customers and partners. In GOOG's case, approximately 75% of its first-half 2026 profits have come from the mark-up of its stakes in, primarily, Anthropic and SpaceX.
Canada's highest profile economist, David Rosenberg, calculates that the S&P profits increase this year exclusive of energy and AI-related sectors would be a much more pedestrian 4%.
Regardless, a close study of the above chart indicates that past times of earnings spikes have been followed by equally dramatic declines. The following image, also from ZeroHedge, would also strongly suggest that at least some mean reversion is to be realistically expected.
[Chart — ZeroHedge: corporate profits vs trend, the mean-reversion gap]
Of course, this time could be different. However, one of America's finest CEOs, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon, has said those are the most dangerous words in the English language. In our view, rivaling those would be those uttered by the star American economist of the 1920s, Irving Fisher. Mr. Fisher publicly, and infamously, declared on October 15th, 1929, that "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently higher plateau."
If market history teaches us anything, it's that nothing is permanent… other than constant change and extreme volatility. As the above charts clearly illustrate, that applies to corporate profits as well.
The Haymaker Team