Wabash National heads into its third-quarter report with a story that has improved faster than its stock price. Last quarter the trailer maker posted its first positive gross margin in several quarters, grew backlog in a second quarter for the first time in company history, and opened its 2027 order book months ahead of schedule at customers' request. Since then the shares have slipped 5.7% while the S&P 500 gained 3.9%. This report is a test of whether that recovery narrative is turning into financial results, or whether the market's hesitation is justified while the company remains unprofitable.
West Pharmaceutical Services heads into its third-quarter report with an unusual combination: a business that has raised its full-year outlook twice in a row, and a quarter that management itself has framed as a step down. The company now expects 10% to 11% organic growth for 2026, up from an initial 5% to 7%, and adjusted EPS of $8.85 to $9.05, up from $7.85 to $8.20. Yet the third quarter absorbs the start of a contract manufacturing roll-off, the loss of the divested SmartDose 3.5mL business and lingering effects of a May cyber incident. The question is whether that softer headline masks a core franchise that is still accelerating.
West Bancorporation heads into its third-quarter report with a profitability story that has been working almost too well to ignore and a balance sheet that has refused to grow. Net interest margin has widened for several consecutive quarters, net income climbed to $11.1 million last quarter, and the board lifted the dividend to $0.26, the highest in company history. Yet loan balances have stalled under a wave of payoffs, and management warned that the pressure would carry into this quarter. The report due before the open on October 29 should show whether margin expansion alone can keep carrying earnings while the bank waits for lending to turn.
Willis Towers Watson heads into its third-quarter report with an interesting disconnect. Wall Street is penciling in double-digit earnings growth and solid top-line expansion, yet the stock has lagged the broader market by a wide margin since the company last reported. Shares have fallen 6.1% over that stretch while the S&P 500 gained 4.5%. That gap means this release is less about whether WTW can grow and more about whether its growth is the kind the market is willing to pay for.
Xcel Energy's third-quarter report carries more weight than a typical utility print. Last quarter management deferred its big refresh, signaling that the capital plan would be rolled forward this fall off a new 2027 to 2031 base, with rate-base growth pushing well into double digits and the long-term earnings growth target nudged to an average of 9% or better through 2030. The stock has not waited for the details. Shares are down about 5% since the last report while the S&P 500 gained roughly 4.5%, so Xcel arrives at this release with a constructive story and a skeptical tape.
Three months ago, XPO delivered the kind of quarter freight investors had waited years to hear: volumes running well above seasonal norms, a record operating ratio in its less-than-truckload network, and raised targets for both margins and free cash flow. The stock has since fallen about 10%, trailing the S&P 500 by nearly 15 percentage points. That gap between an improving story and a sagging share price is what makes the third-quarter report, due before the open on October 29, so consequential. Either the recovery shows up in the numbers and the selloff looks premature, or the market's skepticism about an early-cycle turn gets some vindication.
Three months ago, Xerox gave investors something they had not heard in a while: a raise across nearly every line that matters. Revenue guidance went up, the Lexmark synergy target went up, operating income guidance went up, and the year-end leverage goal got meaningfully more ambitious. The market has responded by knocking the stock down nearly 24% while the S&P 500 gained about 4.5%. That gap is the story heading into the third-quarter report on October 29, before the opening bell. Either the Street does not believe the new management team's numbers, or it believes the risks flagged on the last call are already eating into them.
YPF heads into its third-quarter report with an unusual problem: the bar it has to clear is lower than what it just delivered, yet the stakes may be higher. The second quarter was a record by almost any measure, with adjusted EBITDA of $2.8 billion, a 43% margin and a guidance raise that lifted the full-year EBITDA target by roughly a third to about $8 billion. The question now is how much of that surge reflected durable shale and refining gains, and how much was a gift from oil prices that have since been swinging hard.
Monro heads into its fiscal second-quarter report needing to show that last quarter was a stumble rather than a new trajectory. Three months ago, management reaffirmed a full-year plan built on positive comparable store sales and gross margin in line with fiscal 2026, even as the first quarter delivered a 1.7% comp decline, a sharp drop in operating income and a $30 million cash burn. The gap between that reaffirmed outlook and the actual run rate is the central tension in this release, and it arrives with a formal strategic-alternatives review, including a possible sale of the company, still unresolved.
Few healthcare REITs enter an earnings report carrying as much skepticism as Medical Properties Trust does now. The shares have fallen 41.6% since the company last reported, while the S&P 500 has been essentially flat. At $2.63, the stock is pinned against the $2.61 low of its post-earnings range and sits roughly half way below its 200-day moving average of $5.37. The October 29 release, due before the open, therefore matters less as a test of a few pennies of earnings and more as a test of whether the hospital landlord's rent stream is as durable as its business model requires.
Ranpak heads into its third-quarter report with an unusual disconnect. Last quarter, management sounded more confident than at any point in recent memory, pointing to accelerating automation sales, recovering margins and a product pipeline it called the most exciting of its tenure. The market answered by cutting the stock by roughly a third. The October 29 release, due before the open, is the first real chance to show whether that optimism was early or simply wrong.
Few regional bank reports this season carry as much weight as Coastal Financial's next one. Last quarter the Washington-based lender posted a loss of $2.76 per share even though revenue reached $207.3 million, its strongest top line in the comparison set. The stock has since lost roughly a fifth of its value. The question before the October 29 release is simple to state and hard to answer. Was that quarter an isolated hit, or the first sign that the earnings base is less reliable than the market had assumed?
Escalade's last report looked spectacular on the surface, but a large share of that shine came from a one-time $9.9 million tariff refund. The September quarter strips that windfall away. That makes this report the cleaner test of whether the company's return to sales growth and wider margins can hold up on its own, during the season when it ships the most product and faces the cost pressures management warned about.
Kymera Therapeutics enters its third-quarter report in an unusual position: the financial results will almost certainly look worse than last quarter's, and that may matter very little. What matters is whether management keeps the clock running on the most important event in the company's near-term history, the top-line readout from Broaden2, its Phase 2b atopic dermatitis study of the oral STAT6 degrader KT621, now promised by year-end 2026.
ACCO Brands enters its third-quarter report with an awkward mix of good news and a warning label. Three months ago the office and school products maker raised its full-year sales and earnings outlook for the first time this cycle, helped by a strong back-to-school sell-in and an EPOS acquisition running ahead of plan. In the same breath, management told investors that second-half gross and operating margins would likely fall below last year's levels as fuel and raw-material costs climb faster than prices. The September quarter is the first real look at how much of that caution was prudence and how much was a preview.
American Coastal Insurance enters its third-quarter report with a split personality. The balance sheet has rarely looked sturdier, hurricane exposure has been deliberately shrunk, and capital is flowing back to shareholders. The income statement tells a less comfortable story: premiums are shrinking, the combined ratio has climbed for several straight quarters, and management cut its revenue outlook last time out. When the Florida condo and HOA specialist reports after the close on October 29, the question is whether those defensive moves can offset a soft pricing cycle that management itself expects to last into 2027.
Arthur J. Gallagher has built its recent story on a simple promise: even as property insurance prices fall, the broker can grow through it by winning new business, expanding exposures and squeezing more out of its AssuredPartners acquisition. The third-quarter report, due after the close on October 29, is a test of whether that promise still holds now that the property reset has clearly steepened and the market mood around the stock has cooled.
Alignment Healthcare enters its third-quarter report with an unusual setup: management told investors three months ago that this would be a soft quarter by design, and the stock has since fallen about 45% anyway. Shares have trailed the S&P 500 by more than 48 percentage points since the last report, even though that report brought a second straight guidance raise and the lowest medical benefit ratio in the company's history as a public company. The question now is less whether Alignment can beat a modest bar and more whether it can show that the planned slowdown really is planned.
Amazon heads into its third-quarter report with an awkward split screen. Its cloud business just posted its fastest growth in 18 quarters along with margins that skeptics said AI would never allow, yet the stock has slipped since that report while the broader market climbed. The October 29 release, due after the close, needs to show that the AWS inflection was a trend rather than a one-quarter spike, and that heavy spending and rising costs are not quietly eating the gains.
Asure Software enters its third-quarter report with an odd disconnect. Management spent last quarter's call describing a business gaining momentum on nearly every operating measure, nudged up the floor of its full-year profitability target, and celebrated a major enterprise tax go-live. Yet the stock has fallen 7.2% since then, lagging the S&P 500 by more than 10 percentage points and drifting to $7.13, just above its post-earnings low of $7.02 and well beneath its 200-day moving average of $8.54. The report due after the close on October 29 needs to show that the improving story is translating into numbers the market can trust.
Alphatec spent its last report convincing investors that the first-quarter stumble in its EOS imaging business was a matter of execution rather than a crack in the story. The third-quarter release, due after the close on October 29, is where that argument has to start paying off in the numbers. Management has built a 2026 plan that leans heavily on the second half, and this quarter offers the first real look at whether the acceleration it promised is arriving on schedule.
AptarGroup heads into its third-quarter report with a story that sounds better than its stock chart. Management told investors three months ago that the worst of the emergency-medicine destock was behind it, that core pharma was growing again and that beauty and closures margins were mending. The market has not bought it. Shares have fallen 8.5% since that report while the S&P 500 gained 3.3%. That leaves this release, the first under new CEO Gael Touya, needing to prove the inflection is real.
Axos Financial heads into its fiscal first-quarter report with a growth story that still looks intact on paper and a stock that has been treated as if it isn't. Since the last report, shares have fallen 12.3% while the S&P 500 gained 3.3%. That gap suggests the market cares less about the bank's double-digit loan growth than about two worries that surfaced last quarter: a net interest margin coming off its highs and a cluster of commercial credit problems. The October 29 release, due after the close, is a test of whether those issues were growing pains or the start of a less profitable chapter.
AXT enters its September-quarter report with an unusual advantage and an unusual problem. The advantage is that management told investors three months ago that roughly $66 million of revenue for the period was already secured, which takes much of the guesswork out of the top line. The problem is that the stock has fallen 14.4% since that upbeat report while the S&P 500 gained 3.3%, a gap of nearly 18 percentage points. When the headline number is largely spoken for, the market tends to judge the quarter on everything else: margins, the pace of the indium phosphide capacity build, and whether the forward targets hold.
Bright Horizons heads into its third-quarter report with a split personality. Its backup care business has been accelerating hard enough to drive two straight increases to full-year earnings guidance, while its traditional full-service centers keep losing ground to a worsening Australian portfolio and a rising pace of closures. The summer quarter is when backup care matters most, so this report should show whether the growth engine can keep pulling the rest of the company forward.
Buenaventura heads into its third-quarter report with two stories pulling in opposite directions. One is a cash machine humming along on the back of record copper prices and surging Cerro Verde dividends. The other is San Gabriel, the company's flagship gold growth project, which finally started selling metal last quarter but has kept uncovering new processing problems. The October 29 release, due after the close, will show which story the market chooses to believe.
CareDx enters its third-quarter report with an unusual setup: management has raised its full-year revenue outlook three times, the stock has nearly doubled its trading range, and yet the published consensus still looks anchored to an older version of the story. The quarter, due after the close on October 29, is the first to include the newly acquired NavDx oncology business and the first without the divested lab products line. That makes it the cleanest look yet at what the reshaped company actually earns.
COPT Defense Properties heads into its third-quarter report with an odd mismatch between story and stock. Management has raised its full-year outlook four straight times, leasing at its Huntsville campus is close to full, and Washington is now framing trillion-dollar defense base budgets as routine. Yet the shares have fallen 14.3% since the last report while the S&P 500 gained 4%, a gap of more than 18 percentage points. When the company reports after the close on October 29, the question is whether the operating results justify that pessimism or expose it as overdone.
Centerra Gold heads into its third-quarter report with a curious mismatch. The stock has climbed more than 37% since the company last reported, yet analysts expect earnings per share to slip slightly from the prior quarter. That gap between market enthusiasm and fairly sober earnings estimates is the central tension of this release. Either the Street is leaving room for upside, or the share price has already captured most of the good news.
Three months ago, CNO Financial did something it had not done all cycle: it raised its full-year earnings outlook, lifting 2026 operating EPS guidance to $4.60 to $4.80 from $4.25 to $4.45. The third-quarter report, due after the close on October 29, is the first chance to see whether that confidence rested on durable improvement or on a quarter flattered by items management itself said would not repeat. The market has not waited for the answer. The shares are down 4.7% since the last report while the S&P 500 gained 3.3%, a gap of about eight percentage points.
Coinbase has spent the past year telling investors that it is no longer just a bet on Bitcoin trading volumes. Its third-quarter report, due after the close on October 29, offers a clean test of that claim. Revenue is expected to slide again, so the question is whether the newer businesses management has been promoting are large enough to keep the losses shrinking while the core exchange business contracts.
Columbia Sportswear heads into its third-quarter report with a guidance raise that looks better on paper than it feels in practice. Last quarter, management lifted its full-year earnings outlook to $4.45 to $4.90 per share, but nearly all of that came from passing through a one-time tariff refund of roughly $78 million. Underneath, the second-half sales and margin picture was trimmed, and more than $30 million of fall shipments slid from the third quarter into the fourth. That leaves the September quarter as a transitional period that must prove the business is merely delayed, not deteriorating.
Coursera's third-quarter report will be the first to include a full three months of Udemy, and that matters for more than accounting reasons. The headline numbers will look spectacular, with revenue roughly doubling from a year ago. The real question is whether the combined company is anything more than a cost-cutting exercise bolted onto two learning platforms whose underlying demand has gone flat.
Last quarter CubeSmart's management sounded more upbeat than it had in years. It raised same-store revenue guidance, pointed to occupancy turning positive, and told investors to expect earnings growth to return in the back half of 2026. The market has not bought it. Shares have fallen 6.4% since that report while the S&P 500 gained 3.3%. That leaves the third-quarter release, due after the close on October 29, as the first quarter that has to show the recovery actually showing up in the numbers.
Cousins Properties heads into its third-quarter report with a curious disconnect. Over the past three calls, management has delivered something rare in office real estate: steady, compounding improvement in occupancy, leasing and guidance. Yet the stock has fallen 13.4% since the last report while the S&P 500 gained 3.3%. When the company reports after the close on October 29, the question is whether a quarter that management already signaled would be bumpier can still show the recovery is intact.
Covenant Logistics heads into its third-quarter report with a story that sounds better than its numbers. Last quarter management described the freight market as reaching a positive inflection point, with contract rate increases climbing from roughly 3% in winter bids to double digits by early summer, and even floated the idea of a multi-year upcycle stretching into 2027 and 2028. The problem was that adjusted operating income fell 19% anyway, a steeper drop than the first quarter's decline. The stock has since lost about 30% of its value, trailing the S&P 500 by nearly 35 percentage points. The upcoming report is where the rate story either starts showing up in earnings or loses more of its credibility.
Covista enters its fiscal first-quarter report with an unusual gap between what management promised and what Wall Street is willing to believe. The company opened fiscal 2027 by guiding to adjusted earnings of $8.90 to $9.15 per share, yet the full-year consensus sits at $8.85, just below the bottom of that range. Revenue expectations of $2.07 billion land at the midpoint of the $2.05 billion to $2.09 billion outlook. Analysts are comfortable with the top line but doubt how much of it reaches the bottom line. The September quarter, when management said campus and technology spending would weigh most heavily, is the first real chance to settle that argument.
Digital Realty heads into its third-quarter report with an awkward split between what management says and what the stock is doing. Last quarter the company raised its outlook for the third time this year, posted record renewal spreads and bookings, and described the business as running at full strength. Since then the shares have fallen 7.7% while the S&P 500 gained 4.1%, a gap of nearly 12 percentage points. The report after the close on October 29 is a test of whether the operating story can close that gap, or whether the market is worried about something the income statement has not yet shown.
DaVita heads into its third-quarter report with an unusual split between its operating story and its stock chart. On the last call, management said patient volumes were firming faster than planned, thanks to a sustained drop in mortality, and introduced a promising new clinical tool. Yet the shares have fallen 14.6% since that report, trailing the S&P 500 by nearly 14 percentage points. The market appears focused on the other half of the message: revenue per treatment is turning into a headwind in the back half of the year, and costs are running hotter than planned.
DXC Technology heads into its fiscal second-quarter report with its stock up nearly a third since the last release, a striking move for a company whose revenue is still shrinking and whose earnings are expected to fall by about a third from a year ago. The market appears to have embraced management's more confident, AI-forward story. The report due after the close on October 29 will show whether the operating numbers are starting to catch up with that enthusiasm, or whether the rally has run ahead of the evidence.
DexCom heads into its third-quarter report with a reversal in fortune that is easy to see. Three months ago the company was still trying to convince skeptics that the sensor quality problems of late 2025 were behind it. It then delivered its first outright revenue guidance raise in several quarters, lifted every margin target, and posted a strong randomized trial readout for type 2 patients who do not use insulin. The question now is less about repair and more about whether DexCom can sustain that momentum through a quarter that management itself flagged as carrying extra cost pressure.
Edison International heads into its third-quarter report with a split personality. The operating business looked healthier last quarter than it had in years. Since then, the stock has fallen about 26% while the S&P 500 rose roughly 3%. The gap reflects a question that no quarterly earnings figure can settle: whether California produced a wildfire framework durable enough to keep Southern California Edison's capital plan financeable. The report after the close on October 29 is the first chance for management to explain, in its own words, where the company stands now that the August 31 legislative window has closed.
Eastman Chemical heads into its third-quarter report with a conflict between its outlook and its share price. Management told investors it expected earnings to approach $1.97 a share, well above where the Street sat at the time. Since then the stock has fallen about 9% while the S&P 500 gained more than 3%. Either the market doubts the company's best quarter in years can hold up, or it is pricing in second-half risks that management has so far played down. The report due after the close on October 29 should show which view is right.
Erie Indemnity heads into its third-quarter report with a split personality. The insurance operation it manages has largely repaired its underwriting, but the growth engine that feeds Erie's own revenue keeps losing speed. Last quarter's call made that tension explicit, with management calling growth its primary challenge even as the Exchange's combined ratio improved 13 points from a year earlier. This report, due after the close on October 29, will show whether the new sales tools rolled out this year are starting to slow the erosion or whether the slowdown has simply rolled into another quarter.
Exelixis heads into its third-quarter report with an unusual mismatch between what management has said and what the market seems to believe. Three months ago the company cut its 2026 revenue forecast for the first time in this cycle, blaming a slower ramp for cabozantinib in neuroendocrine tumors. Since then the stock has climbed about 22% while the S&P 500 went nowhere, and the full-year consensus still sits above the top of management's reduced range. Something has to give, and Thursday's numbers will show whether the guidance cut was conservative housekeeping or the start of a softer stretch.
Exponent heads into its third-quarter report with a problem most consulting firms would envy: its best recent tailwind is getting smaller by design. A single large user research study ballooned to roughly 4% of net revenues last quarter, double what management had planned, and is now expected to settle back near a 2% run rate. The question for the report after the close on October 29 is whether the broader wave of AI-enabled hardware work, plus strong failure-analysis demand, can fill that gap without the growth rate visibly stalling.
First Business Financial Services enters its third-quarter report with an unusual problem for a bank coming off a record: some of what made the last quarter great is supposed to go away. Management has already said that elevated prepayment fees, which helped push net interest margin to 3.78%, should cool in the back half of the year, and the bank has walked away from its national SBA lending business. The question now is whether the underlying engine of loan growth, deposit gathering and wealth management fees is strong enough to keep earnings level once the temporary help disappears.
Federated Hermes heads into its third-quarter report with a curious disconnect. Last quarter management delivered record assets under management, record equity assets and an institutional pipeline that roughly tripled. Yet the stock has slid since then, and sentiment has soured noticeably. The October 29 release, due after the close, is a test of whether that operating momentum is real enough to overcome lingering worries about the company's core money market franchise.
Financial Institutions spent its last earnings call doing something regional banks rarely do all at once: raising its targets for net interest margin, return on assets, return on equity and efficiency in a single sweep, with nothing cut to offset them. The third-quarter report, due after the close on October 29, is the first real check on whether that burst of confidence was well founded or whether the second quarter marked a high-water mark for a bank that is now running into a floor on deposit costs.
Three months ago, FMC asked investors to accept a weak third quarter in exchange for a strong fourth. Since then, the third quarter has gone from weak to nearly empty. The company now expects third-quarter revenue of just $65 million to $125 million, down from a prior range of $840 million to $900 million. That is not a trim; it is a near-total erasure of a quarter's sales. When FMC reports after the close on October 29, the numbers themselves will matter less than whether management can explain what happened and whether the rest of the recovery story still stands.