Corporate profits are soaring, but they aren’t all created equal

S&P 500 companies reported $2.64 trillion of combined net income over the last four quarters.

However, a big chunk of the earnings consisted of paper gains from marking up equity investments in other companies.

Last quarter, “other income” at Amazon and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, totaled roughly $121 billion combined after taxes, almost all of it from investment gains.

Street earnings are whatever earnings metric a majority of analysts covering a company adopt, whether non-GAAP or GAAP. These in turn make their way into the most widely collected earnings data for the S&P 500 and other indexes. 

Jonathan Weil Wall Street Journal Aug. 14, 2026

https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/the-121-billion-in-one-time-gains-boosting-big-techs-profits-5d2201da


Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gaap.asp



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