S&P Global Stock Plunges 16% as 2026 Earnings Forecast Falls Short
Wall Street's crystal ball just cracked.
S&P Global's shares cratered at the open—down a staggering 16%—after the financial data giant whiffed on its own 2026 earnings forecast. The numbers don't lie, and today, they're screaming.
The Forecast That Flopped
Analysts expected guidance that would justify the premium valuation. What they got was a reality check. The 16% collapse in share price isn't just a dip; it's a verdict. The market's punishing misplaced confidence with extreme prejudice.
Trust, But Verify (The Data)
This is the firm other firms pay to rate risk and parse economic signals. When the scorekeeper misses its own targets, it begs the question: who's watching the watchers? Another reminder that in traditional finance, the most carefully modeled forecasts often crumble under the weight of real-world chaos—meanwhile, decentralized ledgers just keep on ticking, immutable and auditable by all.
The message is clear: in today's market, missing your numbers isn't an oversight—it's an existential threat. S&P just learned that lesson the hard way.
Earnings disappointed while AI fears spread
That forecast landed right in the middle of panic over how fast AI might tear through software and data companies.
Even though some analysts still say companies with exclusive data like S&P could survive these AI waves, nobody’s listening right now. Markets don’t care about what might happen later. They’re looking at that earnings miss today. That’s what’s on the table.
Let’s talk about the numbers. In the fourth quarter, the company reported adjusted net income of $4.30 per share. Analysts were looking for $4.33. Close, but not good enough. Total revenue came in at $3.92 billion, up 9% from the same quarter a year ago.
On the GAAP side, diluted earnings per share were $14.66, a 19% jump year-over-year. Adjusted diluted EPS came in at $17.83, up 14%. That all sounds decent, but none of it mattered because investors saw one thing: guidance for 2026 came up short.
President and CEO Martina Cheung still tried to focus on what went right. She said, “We delivered a strong quarter driven by performance in all divisions, momentum in private markets, and expansion with our CCO clients. I’m very proud of what we accomplished in 2025. The scale of innovation and pace of AI integration in our products and internal processes was a leap forward for our clients and the business.”
But that wasn’t what investors wanted to hear. Not today.
Breakdown of revenue and the 2026 plan
Revenue from the Market Intelligence division grew 6%, mostly because of more subscriptions and higher usage. That gain was held back a bit by the sale of Fincentric, which the company dropped in August 2024.
Ratings revenue climbed 8%, helped by a 10% increase in non-transaction activity and a 6% bump in transaction-based revenue. Over in Energy, revenue ROSE 7%, but not without issues. Sanctions on some clients and lower non-subscription revenue made a dent.
The Mobility division saw a 9% jump, thanks to strong growth in Dealer services and the Financial & Other segment. Manufacturing didn’t add much. Meanwhile, Indices revenue surged 14%, thanks to rising asset-linked fees, more money flowing into ETFs, and gains from exchange-traded derivatives and custom data subscriptions.
For the year ahead, S&P expects organic revenue growth between 6% and 8%. It also confirmed that GAAP guidance will be shared later this year, once the Mobility business spin-off wraps up. That’s expected by mid-2026.
Cheung also confirmed that S&P gave back a huge chunk of cash to shareholders in 2025. The company returned $6.2 billion, including $1.2 billion in dividends and $5 billion in stock buybacks. That’s 113% of adjusted free cash flow. For 2026, S&P Global still plan to return at least 85% of free cash Flow to investors, according to the earnings report.
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