Top US Stocks to Watch as Earnings Season Broadens Out

What’s happening: Earnings season is picking up, with big reports coming from Tesla, Boeing, UnitedHealth, Intel, GE Aerospace, ServiceNow, and Freeport-McMoRan.

Why it matters: The market is already at record highs. Strong earnings are needed to support these prices and help the rally spread beyond just the biggest tech companies.

What the market is missing: Sectors like industrials, utilities, materials, healthcare, and energy are quietly driving much of the gains, even more than the well-known AI stocks.

Key risk to watch: If oil prices jump again or big cyclical companies give weak outlooks, market sentiment could turn negative fast.

Investor lens: This week, the focus is less on beating earnings estimates and more on which sectors are drawing new investment after the rebound.

The S&P 500 has returned to record highs after bouncing back from the late-March selloff linked to the US-Iran conflict. The rally has been especially strong. Since hitting a low on March 30, the index is up about 12%. The Nasdaq Composite, focused on tech stocks, is on its longest winning streak since 1992. Last week alone, the S&P 500 rose about 4.5%.

Investors seem to believe that the geopolitical situation will not get worse for now. This has shifted the focus back to earnings, company outlooks, and which sectors are leading.

That’s why the upcoming week matters.

Almost 20% of S&P 500 companies will report results between April 20 and April 24. Investors want more than just good numbers; they want to see if the rebound can spread beyond just the biggest tech stocks.

FactSet expects S&P 500 earnings to grow 13.2% in the first quarter compared to last year. That would be the sixth straight quarter of double-digit growth. Revenue is up about 9.9%, the fastest since late 2022.

The market is treating the recent war scare as just a brief setback. Now, earnings reports need to back up that optimism.

US stocks have bounced back unusually quickly.

Last week, the S&P 500 closed at a new record, and the Nasdaq also hit all-time highs after bouncing back from war-related losses. According to Reuters, the S&P 500 returned to record levels in just 11 trading days after its March drop. Bespoke Investment Group says this has never happened before after a 5% to 10% correction.

That speed matters because fast rebounds often leave markets technically stretched.

Many major indexes now look overbought, and valuations have gone up. FactSet puts the S&P 500’s forward price-to-earnings ratio at 20.9, which is higher than the five-year average of 19.9 and the ten-year average of 18.9.

This doesn’t mean the rally is finished, but it does mean that earnings growth now needs to play a bigger role.

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Tuesday will probably be the busiest day for economic news.

Retail sales data will provide one of the clearest reads on consumer strength. Pending home sales and business inventories will also be released. On the earnings side, major names include UnitedHealth Group, GE Aerospace, Danaher, D.R. Horton, Raytheon Technologies, and Halliburton.

On Wednesday, we’ll see crude oil inventory data and some of the week’s biggest earnings reports, including Tesla, Boeing, GE Vernova, Vertiv Holdings, Texas Instruments, and ServiceNow.

Thursday’s focus will be on jobless claims, flash PMI data, and new home sales, as well as earnings from Lockheed Martin, American Express, Intel, Freeport-McMoRan, Newmont Corporation, and Honeywell.

Tesla’s earnings are especially important this quarter because they cover several key themes: electric-vehicle demand, AI, robotics, profit margins, and consumer sentiment.

Tesla delivered 358,023 vehicles in the first quarter, down 14% from the previous quarter but up over 6% from a year ago. As a result, investors will likely pay more attention to what the company says about demand, price cuts, robotaxis, and AI products than to the revenue numbers alone.

Boeing has become one of the clearest industrial recovery stories in the market.

Boeing’s stock depends on airline demand, aircraft production, and stable supply chains. If the company gives strong delivery guidance, it could support the shift toward industrial and aerospace stocks, especially as big investors move away from just software and semiconductor companies.

UnitedHealth is still one of the biggest defensive stocks out there.

Analysts expect UnitedHealth to report about $109.4 billion in first-quarter revenue. Investors will be watching trends in medical costs, insurance profit margins, and the company's comments on healthcare utilisation. With ongoing concerns about oil prices and interest rates, defensive stocks like UnitedHealth have become more important.

Intel has become one of the more interesting semiconductor names because expectations are still relatively low.

Analysts expect only $0.01 in earnings per share, even though the stock has jumped a lot this year. This means that even small improvements in PC demand, AI server updates, or progress in its foundry business could move the stock price.

GE’s split has resulted in two very different, but equally important, companies.

GE Aerospace gives investors access to commercial aviation and defense spending, while GE Vernova lets them invest in electrification, power infrastructure, and the rising energy needs of AI data centers.

This is important because utilities and energy infrastructure have quietly become key ways to invest in AI. Data centers need electricity, not just optimism, to run.

Copper and gold are becoming more important as big investors look for ways to protect against inflation and global uncertainty.

Freeport lets investors benefit from rising copper demand due to electrification, grid upgrades, and AI infrastructure. Newmont gives exposure to gold, which often attracts investment during times of global uncertainty and rising inflation.

Technology is still leading the market in headline terms, but it is no longer the only story.

Big investors are putting more money into energy, utilities, industrials, materials, and healthcare. BlackRock points to energy security and the growing need for electricity from AI as major long-term trends. ETF flows are also supporting these cyclical sectors.

Some of the main stocks benefiting from this shift are Halliburton, Kinder Morgan, Schlumberger, Honeywell, NextEra Energy, Constellation Energy, Caterpillar, and Vertiv Holdings.

What’s interesting is that many of these stocks benefit from the same big trends as major tech companies, like AI, electrification, infrastructure spending, and reshoring.

The difference is that these companies sell products such as turbines, copper, pipelines, aircraft parts, and power systems, not cloud subscriptions.

The market is already reflecting a lot of optimism.

The next stage of the rally depends on whether earnings can support higher stock prices and if leadership spreads beyond the biggest tech companies. If we see strong results from industrials, healthcare, energy, and semiconductor companies this week, the case for a continued rally gets stronger.

If not, how quickly the market bounced back could become more important than how strong the rebound was.