Markets AUG 14, 2026

Big Tech paper gains inflate S&P 500 EPS growth to 48% from a real 29%

Alphabet's SpaceX and Anthropic markups and Amazon's $53.4B Anthropic gain distorted Q2 prints as monday.com beat with a 22% cash-backed revenue lift.

BY HENLEY MARRAST · MARKETS DESK

Strip out the private-AI markups at Alphabet and Amazon, and the S&P 500’s headline 48% Q2 earnings growth collapses to roughly 29%. That roughly 20-point wedge, flagged by LSEG head of earnings research Tajinder Dhillon in a CNBC analysis on August 3, is the story hiding inside a quarter Bloomberg described on August 14 as strong enough to keep US equities pinned at all-time highs.

The mechanics are almost embarrassing in their concentration. Amazon reported bottom-line growth of more than 240%, powered by a $53.4 billion investment gain the company itself attributes primarily to its Anthropic stake; ex-Anthropic, growth was closer to 17%. Alphabet’s earnings were up nearly 300% on paper, or about 23% once you back out mark-to-market gains on SpaceX and Anthropic. Microsoft added roughly ten percentage points of EPS growth from a $3.2 billion net income lift mostly traceable to Anthropic.

Zoom out and the distortion becomes structural. The Wall Street Journal, cited by TheStreet, calculates that Alphabet alone is on track for around 10% of Q2 S&P 500 earnings and Amazon another 5%, with combined after-tax “other income” of roughly $121 billion last quarter, almost entirely equity markups on illiquid private stakes. Against S&P Global Market Intelligence’s $2.64 trillion trailing four-quarter net income for the index, that’s not a rounding error. It’s the index taking a directional bet on Anthropic and SpaceX valuations and calling it operating performance.

One analyst quoted by CNBC put the reflexivity plainly: “Based on where SpaceX is trading now, GOOGL will likely have a big reversal in their mark-to-market when they report the September quarter.”

The cash-backed corner of the quarter looks different. monday.com’s Form 6-K, filed August 10, reported Q2 revenue of $364.6 million, up 22% year-over-year, with ARR from AI products doubling from Q1 and accounting for 17% of net new ARR. Full-year guidance was set at $1.466 billion to $1.474 billion in revenue and $280 million to $290 million in adjusted free cash flow.

FactSet’s tally, 86% of reporting companies beating EPS with an average 7% surprise against a long-term 4.4%, will get quoted all week as evidence of fundamentals. Half of it’s fundamentals. The other half is Anthropic’s cap table, printed as GAAP.

Sources

About the author

Henley Marrast

MARKETS DESK

Henley Marrast covers AI-equity flow, accelerator demand, and earnings prints for AI Sheet Report. She leads coverage of the public AI complex from the New York markets desk, with a focus on the daily tape and quarterly results. She has been writing about technology markets for several years.