Micron and Nvidia Mask S&P 500 Earnings Growth Slowdown
Alina Collins
The S&P 500 posted 24.7% year-over-year earnings growth in Q2 2026, but strip out Micron and Nvidia and the gain narrows sharply — the headline number carries a structural overstatement risk.
How real is that 24.7% growth?
The S&P 500 delivered 24.7% year-over-year earnings growth in Q2 — a strong headline number.
But per Seeking Alpha, removing Micron Technology and Nvidia would significantly reduce the overall rate.
This means → the figure does not evenly reflect earnings across all 500 constituents; two chip giants carried most of the gain.
Why these two companies?
Both Micron and Nvidia sit at the core of the AI infrastructure spending wave — one makes AI chips, the other makes the high-end memory AI requires.
Their earnings far outpaced the average of the index's other constituents, creating a highly concentrated contribution structure.
In plain terms = the class average looks impressive, but two top students pulled it up — the rest of the class may not have improved at all.
What should investors take from this number?
Index-level earnings growth contains a structural distortion; reading it as "broad-based improvement across sectors" would be a mistake.
Whether this earnings season produces wider profit gains beyond the AI leaders is the key test of sustainability.
This reflects how AI's influence on the broad market index is now large enough to warp the overall earnings picture — the index is not the full story.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.