Highest Number of S&P 500 Companies Issuing Positive EPS Guidance in 5 Years

Overall, 110 S&P 500 companies have issued quarterly EPS guidance for the first quarter. Of these companies, 51 have issued negative EPS guidance and 59 have issued positive EPS guidance.

The number of companies issuing negative EPS guidance is below the 5-year average of 61 and below the 10-year average of 60. Overall, this marks with the lowest number of S&P 500 companies issuing negative EPS guidance for a quarter since Q4 2021 (51).

On the other hand, the number of companies issuing positive EPS guidance for the first quarter is above the 5-year average of 44 and above the 10-year average of 40. In fact, this marks the highest number of S&P 500 companies issuing positive EPS guidance for a quarter since Q2 2021 (66).

As a result, the percentage of companies issuing positive EPS guidance is 54% (59 out of 110), which is above the 5-year average of 42% and above the 10-year average of 40%. This quarter marks the highest percentage of S&P 500 companies issuing positive EPS guidance for a quarter since Q3 2021 (57%).

What is driving the higher number of S&P 500 companies issuing positive EPS guidance? At the sector level, the Information Technology sector has the highest number of companies issuing positive EPS guidance of all 11 sectors at 33. This number is well above the 5-year average of 22.5 and well above the 10-year average of 19.6 for the sector.

In fact, this quarter ties the mark with the previous quarter for the second-highest number of companies in the Information Technology sector issuing positive EPS guidance for a quarter since FactSet began tracking this metric in 2006. The current record is 36, which occurred in Q3 2025.

At the industry level, the Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment (10) industry has the highest number of companies issuing positive EPS guidance within the Information Technology sector.

Outside of the Information Technology sector, the Consumer Discretionary, Industrials, and Materials sectors have more companies using positive EPS guidance for Q1 2026 relative to their 5-year and 10-year averages.

In addition, 77 S&P 500 companies have issued positive revenue guidance for Q1 2026, which is the highest number since FactSet began tracking this metric in 2006. The previous record was 71, which occurred in Q1 2021. Similar to EPS guidance, the Information Technology sector has the highest number of companies issuing positive revenue guidance of all 11 sectors at 47. This number also marks the highest number of companies in the Information Technology sector issuing positive revenue guidance for a quarter since FactSet began tracking this metric in 2006. The previous record was 45, which occurred in Q2 2021.

The term “guidance” (or “preannouncement”) is defined as a projection or estimate for EPS provided by a company in advance of the company reporting actual results. Guidance is classified as negative if the estimate (or mid-point of a range of estimates) provided by a company is lower than the mean EPS estimate the day before the guidance was issued. Guidance is classified as positive if the estimate (or mid-point of a range of estimates) provided by the company is higher than the mean EPS estimate the day before the guidance was issued.

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