Overall, 112 S&P 500 companies have issued quarterly EPS guidance for the third quarter. Of these companies, 56 have issued negative EPS guidance and 56 have issued positive EPS guidance.
The number of companies issuing negative EPS guidance is below the 5-year average of 58 and below the 10-year average of 60. Overall, this quarter marks 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 third quarter is well above the 5-year average of 43 and well above the 10-year average of 39. In fact, this is 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 50% (56 out of 112), which is above the 5-year average of 43% and above the 10-year average of 39%. This quarter also marks the highest percentage of S&P 500 companies issuing positive EPS guidance 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 36. This number is well above the 5-year average of 21.4 and above the 10-year average of 19.5 for the sector.
In fact, this is the 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 previous record was 29, which occurred in the previous quarter (Q2 2025).
At the industry level, the Software (12) and Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment (9) industries have the highest number of companies issuing positive EPS guidance within the Information Technology sector.
It is interesting to note that the Information Technology has also recorded the second-largest increase in its bottom-up EPS estimate (+3.6%) for Q3 2025 during the quarter. For more details, please see pages 3 through 6.
Thus, both companies and analysts have been more optimistic in their earnings outlooks for this sector relative to the other ten sectors. The Information Technology sector also has the highest estimated earnings growth rate of all ten sectors for Q3 2025 at 20.9%.
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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