Getting the easy stuff out of the way, the roll from June 30th to July 1 caused the SP 500’s forward 4-quarter estimate (FFQE) to add one quarter with one quarter falling off, so the FFQE is now a sum of Q3 ’26 through Q2 ’27:<\/p>\n
These numbers continue to amaze. At least in terms of companies followed by this blog, no notable “needle-movers” are scheduled to report this coming week. The week of July 13th, begins to see the banks \/ financials report.<\/p>\n
The fact is SP 500 earnings are appreciating faster than the benchmark itself, hence the slight PE compression on the benchmark: Q1 ’26 SP 500 EPS grew 24.4% y-o-y, and Q2 ’26 is expected to grow at 24.4% as the numbers indicate today, while the SP 500 was up just 10% YTD through q2 ’26.<\/p>\n
SP 500 annual return data:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n This could be the 4th consecutive year of the SP 500’s total return being double-digits.<\/p>\n Certainly technology and SP 500 earnings growth supports the market appreciation, but it’s unusual to see a streak like this.<\/p>\n The late 1990’s was the greatest of all streaks, i.e. 1995 to 1999, when every year saw the SP 500 appreciate more than 20% per year. This blog post from late December ’25<\/a> talks about the so-called “sequencing of returns” pattern (don’t know who came up with that description, but TYPICALLY you get a mid-single-digit year of SP 500 return, to break the pattern).<\/p>\n But so far in ’26, that doesn’t look like it’s happening.<\/p>\n The point being beware of patterns this strong.<\/p>\n\n