Profit margins and returns
In Q2 2026, the 497 covered companies that reported the quarter took in $4.52T of revenue and kept 16.5% of it as net income, against 12.1% a year earlier. The median company’s net margin was 13.3%. Trailing net income was 21.9% of stockholders’ equity and 5.1% of total assets.
Calendar quarters since 2009, each company’s fiscal quarter assigned by its midpoint. Q2 2026 is the latest complete quarter; Q3 2026 is still being reported, 234 companies so far, and is drawn hollow. Banks and insurers report no revenue under the mapped concepts, so the margins run over the companies with a revenue line; returns on equity and assets include everyone. S&P 500 (SPY) runs in grey on the right-hand axis of every chart.
The market
Gross, operating and net margin · all companies as one, percent of revenue
Sums of each line over sums of revenue, so the large companies weigh most. Gross margin is revenue less cost of revenue.
Net margin, the market and the median company · percent of revenue
When the market line runs above the median company, the largest companies are more profitable than the typical one.
Return on equity and return on assets · trailing twelve months of net income, percent
Trailing net income over the quarter’s stockholders’ equity and total assets, summed over the companies carrying both lines; companies with negative equity are left out of the return on equity.
By sector
Each sector read as one company in Q2 2026, with its net margin a year earlier and its median since 2009.
| Sector | Companies | Gross margin | Operating margin | Net margin | A year earlier | Median since 2009 | Median company | Return on equity | Return on assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All companies | 497 | 43.4% | 17.3% | 16.5% | 12.1% | 9.2% | 13.3% | 21.9% | 5.1% |
| Basic Materials | 25 | 28.9% | 17.4% | 11.3% | 10.5% | 8.5% | 11.2% | 14.4% | 6.9% |
| Communication Services | 14 | 65.7% | 28.0% | 45.7% | 26.6% | 13.6% | 13.2% | 29.1% | 13.7% |
| Consumer Cyclical | 50 | 40.0% | 11.9% | 15.2% | 8.7% | 6.3% | 10.3% | 19.9% | 8.0% |
| Consumer Defensive | 28 | 34.0% | 7.6% | 5.1% | 4.2% | 5.0% | 11.0% | 18.2% | 6.7% |
| Energy | 27 | 26.7% | 16.9% | 14.0% | 7.9% | 7.3% | 17.2% | 14.7% | 7.1% |
| Financial | 73 | 47.1% | 13.5% | 18.1% | 19.6% | 14.9% | 18.0% | 14.2% | 1.4% |
| Healthcare | 59 | 45.6% | 5.3% | 4.9% | 6.2% | 6.6% | 10.6% | 16.3% | 5.8% |
| Industrials | 83 | 33.0% | 13.6% | 11.3% | 9.9% | 8.5% | 12.5% | 22.1% | 6.9% |
| Real Estate | 18 | 39.2% | 21.4% | 14.6% | 17.6% | 15.8% | 27.0% | 12.1% | 4.8% |
| Technology | 103 | 55.9% | 34.7% | 28.4% | 21.1% | 17.2% | 17.0% | 36.4% | 16.6% |
| Utilities | 17 | 30.6% | 24.6% | 15.7% | 13.7% | 10.0% | 13.1% | 12.9% | 3.7% |
Method
- Aggregates
- the covered companies read as one company: sums of market value, earnings, revenue, equity and cash flow over the companies carrying both lines of a ratio, so a loss-maker lowers the market's P/E as it would in an index; a ratio with a non-positive denominator is withheld, so a sector's P/E has no reading while its trailing earnings are a loss in sum (the earnings yield, earnings over value, is shown negative instead).
- Medians
- the median company, over companies with a positive denominator (and, for P/E, positive trailing earnings).
- Quarters
- fiscal quarters are assigned to calendar quarters by their midpoint; a quarter is complete once at least 90% of the prior quarter's reporters have filed it.
- Trailing twelve months
- four consecutive fiscal quarters (ends spanning 240 to 300 days) each carrying the line, else withheld.
- Margins
- gross margin is revenue less cost of revenue over revenue; banks and insurers report no revenue under the mapped concepts, so the Financial sector's margins cover its non-bank members.
- Survivorship
- the companies are today's, so the early years are the history of the firms that survived to be covered now, and the first weeks are dropped until coverage reaches half its peak.
- Market line
- S&P 500 (SPY) daily closes on the right-hand axis of every market chart, and each sector's own sector fund (XLB, XLC, XLY, XLP, XLE, XLF, XLV, XLI, XLRE, XLK, XLU), and an industry group its own (SMH), on its charts, from the market data mirror, so a reading can be seen against what the index or the sector was doing; a fund's line starts when it was listed.
531 companies, 458 with a trailing P/E at the latest close. Income statements, balance sheets and cash flows from each company's SEC 10-K and 10-Q filings (this site's extract); split-adjusted daily closes from a market data vendor. Every figure is computed from the filings; nothing here is a forecast or a recommendation.