Ten companies drive earnings

Business · Heat 3.0 / 10 · 2 shows · 17m airtime

A Dow Jones market data analysis, reported by the Wall Street Journal on October 28, 2026, finds that ten companies account for roughly two-thirds of S&P 500 third-quarter profit growth, with Micron and Nvidia alone contributing about a third. Excluding those ten, earnings growth falls from about 30% to about 10%. Professional investors say the concentration is not a critical threat to the rally, but it ties the market to the same bet on AI paying off.

How 2 podcasts covered it

1. WSJ Tech News Briefing, 2026-10-28 (0:40 to 5:22)
   Walks through the Dow analysis with its reporter
   Walks through the Dow Jones analysis with the reporter who did it: Micron and Nvidia alone supply about a third of the growth, and stripping out the ten biggest profit gainers cuts S&P 500 earnings growth from 30% to about 10%. Investors quoted treat the concentration as the same AI bet, not a new threat.
   New angle: Excluding the ten biggest profit gainers, S&P 500 third-quarter earnings growth falls from about 30% to about 10%.
2. WSJ Tech News Briefing, 2026-10-28 (6:02 to 9:49)
   Explains why investors shrug off concentration
   Lang explains why investors are unbothered by the concentration: the rest of the index still grows about 10%, Micron and Nvidia's surges are seen as temporary, valuations have come down, and today's leaders actually make money, unlike dot-com-era companies. Stays inside the analysis already on the record.
3. Animal Spirits Podcast, 2026-10-28 (1:10 to 9:33)
   Recaps the WSJ earnings concentration story
   Walks through the WSJ concentration story: two AI chip makers at 34% of the earnings boom, forward earnings up while forward P/E falls, and the top 25 versus bottom 25 gap now wider than at the dot-com peak. Stays inside the article's numbers, with Ben undecided on whether AI busts before it pays off.