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Earnings Roundup: Which Big Companies Beat or Missed This Week

Earnings Roundup: Which Big Companies Beat or Missed This Week

ATN BREAKING NEWS |

Earnings Roundup: Which Big Companies Beat or Missed This Week

October 21, 2026 | ATN Trade & Finance

Q3 2026 earnings season hit its first major cluster this week, with Tesla, Meta, General Motors, IBM, and Halliburton all reporting. The headline: beats outnumbered misses across the board, but the reasons behind the numbers ranged from AI-driven ad strength to a $9.9 billion legal charge to a surprising pickup in auto demand that caught Wall Street under-positioned.

General Motors: $50 Billion Quarter, $20 Billion Buyback

GM delivered the week's most unambiguous beat. Revenue came in at $50.0 billion versus a consensus estimate of $48.52 billion, adjusted EPS hit $3.70 against a $3.57 estimate, and adjusted EBIT of $4.1 billion edged the $4.02 billion forecast. The company narrowed its full-year adjusted EBIT guidance to $14.5–$15.5 billion, tightened adjusted EPS guidance to $12.75–$13.75, and raised its adjusted automotive free cash flow outlook to $11.5–$12.5 billion. GM also announced a new $20 billion share buyback — a signal that management sees the stock as undervalued despite full-year tariff costs estimated at $2.5–$3.5 billion. Truck and SUV demand in North America remained strong; EV deliveries were roughly 25,200 units, down 62% year-over-year as the company retooled its EV lineup.

Meta: Revenue Beat, EPS Complicated by $9.9 Billion Legal Charge

Meta reported revenue of $64.6 billion, above the $63.38 billion consensus, driven by advertising revenue of $63.1 billion — a 26% year-over-year increase. Ad impressions rose 10% and average price per ad rose 14%. GAAP EPS came in at $3.83 versus a $3.56 consensus estimate — a beat on paper, but deeply influenced by a $9.9 billion legal charge tied to a teen mental health lawsuit settlement with 52 state attorneys general. Excluding the charge, EPS would have been $7.40. The company guided Q4 revenue to $73–$76 billion, with the midpoint above consensus. Meta also announced a 2-for-1 stock split and disclosed full-year capital expenditure guidance of $135–$145 billion — an aggressive AI infrastructure build that prompted the company to establish a new non-voting Class C share structure. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the quarter demonstrated that "our investments are paying off" and confirmed the launch of Muse and Muse Wonder, Meta's first frontier AI model. Family daily active people reached 3.64 billion in September. META closed up on the day.

Tesla: Profit Beat, Revenue Near Miss

Tesla's Q3 result split the headline: revenue of $28.05 billion came in just below the $28.13 billion estimate, while adjusted EPS of $0.48 beat the $0.44 consensus and adjusted EBITDA of $3.90 billion topped the $3.66 billion forecast. Operating margin held at 2.6%. Free cash flow came in at $1.53 billion. On the product side, Tesla reported that FSD (Supervised) attach rates exceeded 75% of new North American deliveries — a roughly 20-point sequential gain — and that the Tesla Semi entered volume production. The company also noted that its Cybercab robotaxi has accumulated nearly two million cumulative unsupervised miles, with Austin deployment underway. No formal delivery guidance or updated full-year outlook was issued.

IBM: Software Leads a Clean Beat

IBM reported Q3 revenue of $17.1 billion, up 5% year-over-year, with non-GAAP EPS of $2.95 against a consensus estimate of $2.87 — an $0.08 beat. The Software segment led growth at $7.8 billion (+8%), driven by a 19% gain in Data products and an 11% rise in Hybrid Cloud (Red Hat). Consulting was flat at $5.3 billion, while Infrastructure rose 4% to $3.7 billion on a 31% surge in Distributed Infrastructure — offsetting a 20% decline in IBM Z mainframe revenue. For the full year, IBM maintained its constant-currency revenue growth guidance of 4–5% and raised its free cash flow outlook, now expecting FCF to increase by more than $1 billion year-over-year. CEO Arvind Krishna credited "disciplined execution" across the business.

Halliburton: International Growth, North America Softness

Halliburton's Q3 came in slightly ahead of estimates: revenue of $5.714 billion (up 3.7% year-over-year) and EPS of $0.55 against a $0.54 consensus. International operations drove the beat — Middle East/Asia revenue rose 8% sequentially to $1.4 billion — while North America revenue fell 5% sequentially to $2.2 billion on lower US land pressure-pumping activity. Management guided for mid-single-digit revenue growth and an operating margin of approximately 15% in early 2027, with about 200 basis points of expansion — but explicitly assumed no recovery in North American hydraulic fracturing. The oilfield services sector remains bifurcated: international demand tied to the Hormuz supply disruption and elevated crude prices is strong, while domestic drilling activity continues to compress.

What this means: The Q3 earnings picture reinforces what capital markets have been pricing all year: companies with strong international exposure (GM trucks, Meta advertising, IBM software, Halliburton Middle East) are delivering, while businesses dependent on US domestic volume — residential construction, North American drilling, consumer discretionary — remain under pressure. The Meta legal charge is a reminder that platform companies are absorbing significant regulatory and litigation costs; the stock's positive reaction suggests the market is treating the $9.9 billion as a one-time item rather than a structural impairment. With Boeing reporting October 27 and the bulk of the S&P 500 still ahead, this week set a constructive tone.

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