Calcbench

Figures reflect filings and disclosures identified as of August 28, 2026. Following the invalidation of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) earlier this year, public companies have begun reporting significant tariff refunds, expected recoveries, approved claims and refund receivables. Calcbench has identified approximately $18.7 billion of gross tariff refunds across 101 public companies . The 11 largest company-specific amounts identified so far account for approximately $12.1 billion of the total, and they ’ re listed in the table below. (Normally we would do a top 10 list, but UPS and General Motors are tied at $500 million each, so we are treating the group as 11 rather than cutting them off at 10.) Company Ticker Gross refund or recovery How disclosed ...

That’s it, folks — we now call time on our Q2 earnings updates! With more than 3,600 non-financial companies in our sample, we have reams of financial disclosures to review and ponder, so let’s get to it.  As usual, we start with a snapshot of results compared to the year-ago period. Figure 1, below, shows revenue up 16 percent, operating income up 35 percent, cash up 14.9 percent, and net income up a whopping 62.8 percent. Except, as we’ve said all earnings season long, that net income growth number is somewhat deceptive, because it’s driven by a small number of tech giants reporting staggering amounts of net income growth. First was Alphabet ($GOOG), which reported an astonishing $112.2 billion in quarterly net income — but $97.8 billion of that number came from Google revaluing the 6 percent of SpaceX ($SPCX) shares that it owns. That one-time item alone (not even including the rest of Google’s net income!) accounts for 13 percent of all net income among the 3,600 companies we...

Now that just about all S&P 500 firms have filed their Q2 earnings reports, let’s take a closer look at financial performance and economic trends hidden within those numbers. First up: capex spending. Capital expenditures are always a useful disclosure to observe because it helps analysts understand broader economic trends. If capex is rising, that means firms are confident enough in their business prospects to make more investments for long-term growth. If it’s falling, that suggests businesses are less confident about future growth and would rather preserve cash. The debate these days, of course, is whether capex spending for corporations as a whole is being distorted by a small number of tech firms spending zillions of dollars on AI data centers — and whether, if you strip those AI hyperscalers out of the analysis, capex spending is not as good as the overall number seems. So the Calcbench research team (read: intern trying to look busy) used our Multi-Company page to investiga...