Previewing The 2026 Q1 Earnings Season: A Closer Look

We consider Oracle’s ORCL quarterly release on Tuesday (March 10^th) and Adobe's ADBE on Thursday (March 12th) among the early reports of the 2026 Q1 earnings season. Both of these companies will be releasing results for their respective fiscal quarters ending in February, which we count as part of the March-quarter tally.

The 2026 Q1 earnings season will take the spotlight when the big banks report their results in about four weeks. But we will already have seen fiscal February-quarter results from almost two dozen companies by then, including Oracle and Adobe.

In fact, Oracle and Adobe aren’t the first such Q1 reporters already; that distinction goes to AutoZone and Costco, whose quarterly releases for their fiscal quarters ending in February kicked off the 2026 Q1 earnings season.

Before headlines that have led to spiking oil prices as a result of the latest Middle East conflict started dominating market discourse, the issues facing the market were mostly tied to developments in the artificial intelligence space. Specifically, there has been persistent disquiet about the ever-rising levels of spend by mega-cap Tech players on setting up AI infrastructure, and worries about the threats AI poses to the long-term profitability of software businesses.

Oracle and Adobe shares have struggled lately, with Oracle facing headwinds related to its AI-centric spending plans. At the same time, Adobe's downbeat sentiment is tied to the long-term impact of AI on its core business. You can see this in the one-year performance of Oracle and Adobe shares relative to the S&P 500 index (red line, up +21.2%) and the Zacks Tech sector (green line, up +30%).

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Oracle is spending heavily on data centers it considers essential to its AI goals, but it lacks the financial firepower of other hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon. The company’s AI fortunes are also seen as closely tied to OpenAI, which has contracted to use a large portion of Oracle’s future datacenter capacity.

Unlike the Mag 7 hyperscalers, Oracle’s capex needs far exceed its internal cash flows, and the company will need outside funding at least through the next three years. The complicating factor for Oracle management is that their investment-grade credit profile will likely be at risk if they choose to fund all of their capital needs through the debt markets. Shareholders, on the other hand, don’t want to lose sleep over Oracle management diluting their ownership through secondary equity offerings.

Oracle shares were down big following the last quarterly release on December 10^th, when the above funding issue took center stage, but overall quarterly results were mixed as well. The expectation is that Oracle will report $1.70 per share in earnings on $16.89 billion in revenues, representing year-over-year changes of +15.7% and +19.5%, respectively. The revisions trend has been stable, with estimates essentially unchanged over the last two months.

For Adobe, the expectation is of $5.88 per share in earnings on $6.28 billion in revenues, representing year-over-year changes of +15.8% and +9.9%, respectively. Estimates for the February quarter have been stable over the past two months, but the same for the current fiscal year (FY ends in November) have been modestly under pressure.

The Earnings Big Picture

For 2026 Q1 as a whole, total S&P 500 earnings are expected to increase by +11.4% from the same period last year on +8.5% higher revenues.

The chart below shows the Q1 earnings and revenue growth expectations in the context of where growth has been in the preceding five quarters and what is expected in the coming three quarters.

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Estimates for the current period (2026 Q1) have largely been stable, with a modest, though steady uptick in recent weeks, as the chart below shows.

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The chart below shows the overall earnings picture on a calendar-year basis, with double-digit earnings growth expected in 2025 and 2026.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

A quick comment on ongoing market volatility in response to developments in the Middle East. Please keep in mind that for these almost upbeat earnings expectations to come true, we need energy prices to return to where they were a few days ago, as an extended period of spiking oil prices has material negative implications for households as well as businesses.

2025 Q4 Earnings Season Scorecard

We are in that part of the reporting cycle when the preceding earnings season (2025 Q4 in this case) has not yet fully ended, even as the coming earnings season (2026 Q1) has begun, as we noted earlier.

Through Friday, March 6^th, we have seen Q4 results from 493 S&P 500 members, or 98.6% of the index’s total membership. Total earnings for these companies are up +14.1% from the same period last year on +9.1% higher revenues, with 75.3% beating EPS estimates and 72.6% beating revenue estimates.

We have more than 250 companies on deck to report results this week, most of which qualify as belonging to the 2025 Q4 bucket, but some will belong to the 2026 Q1 tally, as will be the case for Oracle and Adobe.

The comparison charts below show the growth rates for companies that have reported, along with what we have seen from this same group of companies in other recent periods.

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The comparison charts below put the Q4 EPS and revenue beats percentages for this group of companies relative to what we had seen from them in other recent periods.

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For a detailed look at the overall earnings picture, including expectations for the coming periods, please check out our weekly Earnings Trends report >>>> Looking Ahead to the Q1 Earnings Season

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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