According to a report by Goldman Sachs analysts, European corporations have demonstrated financial results exceeding market expectations during the current reporting season. At the time of the analysis, about two thirds of the companies in the STOXX Europe 600 index had already submitted their data, showing an average positive earnings per share surprise of three percent, which exceeds long-term historical averages. Earnings per share increased by thirteen percent year-on-year in the first half of the year, the fastest pace in the last three years. It is noteworthy that this result was achieved despite the renewed supply shock in the global energy market, which indicates the high operational stability of the European business.

A detailed analysis of sectoral dynamics revealed that all industries, with the exception of basic resources and discretionary consumer goods, have revised their forecasts upward since the beginning of the reporting period. The most significant positive deviations from consensus forecasts were recorded in the technology, financial and commodities sectors. At the same time, consumer segments have become the main source of negative surprises, which directly reflects the observed weakening of aggregate consumer demand in the region. Investor sentiment towards corporate profits, measured as the difference between the shares of companies with higher and lower valuations, reached its highest level in more than three years, with more than half of issuers receiving upward revisions to forecasts.

The stock market's reaction to the published financial results turned out to be noticeably stronger than historical norms: shares of companies that exceeded or failed to meet expectations, on average, showed a change in quotations of about two percent on the reporting day. At the same time, there are certain dissonances in the assessment of individual issuers. Some technology companies, whose activities are closely related to the development of artificial intelligence, including ASML, Nokia and ASM International, did not receive market support on the day of publication of the results, despite formally exceeding profit expectations. This indicates that investors are currently applying stricter criteria for assessing future growth prospects, rather than just retrospective financial indicators.