The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is in an earnings boom. The usual earnings bust never came.

Wall Street’s forecast for S&P 500 profits over the next year has climbed to about $373 per share, up roughly 32% from a year ago.

That is a rare number.

Since 1990, forward earnings growth has been stronger only in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the pandemic. Back then, however, Wall Street was rebounding from deep cuts to its forecasts.

Not this time.

Earnings per share, or EPS, measures profit on a per-share basis. Forward 12-month EPS uses analysts’ estimates for the coming year rather than reported results from the past year.

Kevin Gordon, head of macro research and strategy at Schwab Center for Financial Research, highlighted the contrast on X this week. Stronger growth since 1990 had only appeared after the financial crisis and pandemic, he wrote, but both periods were preceded by “massive plunges in EPS estimates.”

The numbers back him up.

Forward S&P 500 earnings fell about 38% around the financial crisis and 22% during the pandemic. The dip preceding the current boom was only about 6%.

The market still got a reset. It just came through stock prices instead of collapsing profits.

During the S&P 500’s 25% bear-market slide from January through October 2022, forward EPS actually rose about 5%. Forecasts peaked later and ultimately fell just 6%.

That sent the index’s forward price-to-earnings ratio, which compares current prices with expected profits, from about 21.5 times earnings to 15.3 times.

In plain English, stocks got much cheaper before the profit outlook meaningfully weakened.

The current boom is not confined to one tiny pocket of the market. All 11 S&P 500 sectors have positive forward earnings growth, and eight are growing at double-digit rates.

Still, the gains are far from even.

Technology leads with roughly 82% growth, powered in part by the chip industry’s enormous profit surge. The Magnificent Seven are growing around 44%, compared with roughly 21% for the equal-weight S&P 500.

Because the equal-weight index gives every company the same influence, that 21% figure shows the boom reaches well beyond the megacaps — even if the biggest companies are still pulling the headline number higher.

That gives investors a different kind of earnings test.

The last two booms could lean on a rebound from crushed forecasts. This one cannot.

With earnings season underway and Big Tech results right around the corner, companies now have to deliver the profits Wall Street has already penciled in.

Jared Blikre is the global markets and data editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @SPYJared or email him at jaredblikre@yahooinc.com.

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