Earnings Season Cranks Up for Gainless S&P 500. What to Expect?

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The S&P 500 SPX is now showing nearly zero growth since Election Day, November 5. Markets were euphoric to see Donald Trump win the White House for another four years and pushed the S&P 500 to the rarefied air of 6,000 points and above. But that’s not the case anymore.

A flurry of data has poured cold water on that breakneck rally, including the latest nonfarm payrolls, which showed employers tapped a whopping 256,000 workers in December, far outpacing expectations of 156,000. The news fanned fears that the Federal Reserve might take its time in cutting interest rates — every investor’s biggest concern right now.

It’s up to the earnings season to rejuvenate a falling stock market. To many, the fourth-quarter earnings updates will be the most consequential event as it will also mark President Joe Biden’s departure and the arrival of the main character, Donald Trump.

First through the door, as is tradition, are the heavyweight players on Wall Street. This week traders will get to see the earnings results from big banks including JPMorgan JPM, Wells Fargo WFC and Goldman Sachs GS. In addition, the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock BLK will also post its performance.

The banks’ updates will provide a glimpse into investor appetite for big-shot dealmaking, business sentiment and also how daring and bold consumers were in their spending activity. Things like net interest income — how much the bank earned on interest after paying out deposits — will be a key gauge for the banking system’s health.

Here’s what’s coming from Wall Street’s household names (and some extra).

➡️ Wednesday, January 15, before the bell:

Citi C
Goldman Sachs GS
JPMorgan JPM
Wells Fargo WFC
BlackRock BLK
Bank of New York Mellon BK

➡️ Thursday, January 16, before the open:

Bank of America BAC
Morgan Stanley MS
U.S. Bancorp USB

Other earnings include UnitedHealth UNH.

Once markets digest the updates from the lending giants, the focus will shift to the next big thing — the Magnificent Seven. It’s a high bar once again for America’s most powerful corporate juggernauts.

Investors expect Mag 7 earnings to be up 22% from the same period last year while revenue is eyeballed to have grown 12.3%. The consensus views follow the elite club’s 32.9% earnings jump in the third quarter on revenue increase of 15.4%.

Fun fact: the Mag 7 members accounted for 23.1% of all profits in the S&P 500 for the quarter ending September. For the three months to December, they are expected to consume about a quarter of the earnings pie.

And for 2025, their market cap is projected to devour more than one-third of the S&P 500’s value, which is around $50 trillion. For the tech geeks, here’s the Mag 7 earnings slate:

➡️ Wednesday, January 29, after the closing bell:

Microsoft MSFT
Facebook parent Meta META
Tesla TSLA

➡️ Thursday, January 30, after the closing bell:

Apple AAPL
Amazon AMZN

➡️ Tuesday, February 4, after the closing bell:

Google parent Alphabet GOOGL

➡️ Wednesday, February 19 (tentative), after the closing bell:

Nvidia NVDA

Overall, the foresighted market gurus (i.e. the analysts) expect all companies in the S&P 500 to report a roughly 12% advance in quarterly profits compared to the year-ago quarter. For 2025, the consensus call is a 15% increase in corporate profits from last year.

There are, of course, the permabears among us who spell doom and gloom. They say that Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs could hinder corporate growth by raising prices for US companies that rely on overseas products. And if those companies decide to pass these costs to customers, then inflation might rear back up, throwing the markets into another painful cycle of higher interest rates.

What’s your take? Are you optimistic about the corporate earnings season? And are you excited to see more growth in 2025? Share your thoughts in the comments and let’s spin up the discussion.