US Economics Analyst Earnings Season Takeaways Consumer Strength Before the Slowdown

Economics Research 16 August 2026 | 7:04PM EDT

Earnings Season Takeaways: Consumer Strength Before the Slowdown

n With most of the S&P 500 now reported, we analyze Q2 company results and Ronnie Walker | management commentary in order to draw macroeconomic lessons from Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC micro-level insights. n Revenue growth accelerated to the fastest pace since 2021. Our own preferred guidepost for corporate business activity—real revenues excluding the volatile energy sector—rose a strong 6.4% year-over-year, reaffirming that economic activity increased at a solid pace in Q2. n Fiscal support helped consumer spending accelerate despite elevated oil prices, but we expect a slowdown ahead. Our quantitative measure of sentiment around the consumer rose to its most positive level since 2022. We expect below-consensus real consumer spending growth of just 1-1.5% in 2026H2, reflecting the poor starting point for consumer cashflow (the personal saving rate is low and real disposable income has increased only 0.5% over the last year), the fading boost from strong tax refunds, and a continued headwind from elevated oil prices. n Companies are treating the more than $100bn in tariff refunds issued so far as a one-time windfall. Companies are using the refunds to increase marketing budgets, offset ongoing cost headwinds (especially those related to the Iran War), lower consumer prices, increase buybacks, and, in a few cases, issue refunds to customers. However, management teams emphasized that the windfall is a one-off, and the sectors that likely received the largest refunds are also the sectors for which our price announcement tracker has increased the most and for which analysts revised their forward margin expectations—a proxy for corporate guidance—down the most. n Discussions of AI use have matured over the last year as management teams have cited more specific applications and discussed the costs associated with AI use more frequently. However, only a small share of management teams have quantified the impact of AI on specific use cases (11%) or earnings (2%). 7% of management teams discussed AI-related expenses. The cost of AI use appears modest today—our portfolio strategists estimate that AI inference expenses currently equate to just 0.1% of S&P 500 revenues—but spending appears to have accelerated sharply in recent months.

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Goldman Sachs US Economics Analyst

Earnings Season Takeaways: Consumer Strength Before the Slowdown

We review the Q2 corporate earnings season by analyzing company fundamentals, equity analyst forecasts, company-level alternative data, and management commentary.

Stellar Fundamentals, Even After Adjustments With most of the S&P 500 now reported, the Q2 earnings season was again characterized by strong fundamentals. Q2 earnings are on track to grow almost 50% year-over-year (vs. an expectation of 22% at the start of earnings season), boosted by an almost 20pp boost from large tech companies marking to market the appreciation of private investment stakes. Nevertheless, earnings grew a robust 31% even after excluding that boost, and earnings grew a robust 14% for the median S&P 500 company (Exhibit 1).

Exhibit 1: S&P 500 Earnings Grew 31% Year-over-Year Even After Excluding the Boost From Large Tech Companies Marking to Market the Appreciation of Private Investment Stakes

Percent change, year ago Percent change, year ago 60 S&P 500 Earnings Growth 60

50 Contribution from "Other 50 Income" * Bottom-up 40 Total excluding contribution consensus estimate 40 from "Other Income" 30 30 Median stock

0 0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q * The large contributions in 2026H1 reflect large tech companies marking to market the appreciation of equity stakes in private companies.

Source: Standard and Poor’s, Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research

In Exhibit 2, we plot our preferred guidepost for economic activity for the S&P 500: revenues excluding the volatile and idiosyncratic energy sector, converted to real terms…