Q1 Earnings Season 2026: The 5 Most Important Stocks Reporting This April
- Will Bell
- Apr 1
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 2
Fvie stocks. Five earnings reports. 1 month that decides where the market goes for the rest of 2026.
😱 April earnings season is not just a calendar event.
It is the moment the market stops guessing and starts knowing if a stock is Gold or not.
Every estimate, every forecast, every analyst target gets tested against actual results.
And the 5 stocks below carry more weight than anything else reporting this month.
Here is what we are walking into.
🔥Total S&P 500 earnings are expected to grow +11.3% year over year in Q1 2026.
Tech is forecast at +23.7%.
Financials at +19%. 💵
➡️ Strip the Tech sector out and total S&P earnings growth drops to just 5%.
These five stocks are the reason that number is 11.3% instead.
1. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) ... April 14, 2026
JPMorgan fires the starting gun on earnings season every April.
April 14 is the confirmed date.
Before market open. The entire financial sector watches.
Last quarter JPMorgan reported adjusted EPS of $5.23 against a $5.00 estimate.
Revenue came in at $46.77 billion versus $46.2 billion expected. Management guided full year 2026 net interest income at $103 billion.
What traders are really watching on April 14 is CEO Jamie Dimon's commentary.
His words on consumer spending, the M&A pipeline, and the economic outlook will move not just JPMorgan... but every bank stock, every financial ETF, and frankly the entire market.
➡️ This is the most important 90 minutes of Q1 earnings season. Be positioned before it starts.
📅 JPMorgan Q1 2026 earnings: April 14, 2026 ... before market open. Revenue forecast: $48.62 billion.
2. Goldman Sachs (GS) ... April 13, 2026
Goldman actually reports one day before JPMorgan. April 13 is confirmed.
Before market open.
Last quarter Goldman beat by 21%. Analysts expected $11.62 per share.
Goldman delivered $14.01.
➡️ You see that gap tells you everything about where the business is right now.
CEO David Solomon has been explicit about the pipeline. Investment banking backlog is at a four year high and still growing.
M&A deals that slipped out of 2025 are sitting in the Q1 2026 queue. The fees are already there... they just have not been reocgnized yet.
➡️Q1 2026 EPS consensus is $15.92.
If Goldman runs its recent pattern of beating by a wide margin... the reaction could be the biggest single day move for the stock this year.
📅 Goldman Sachs Q1 2026 earnings: April 13, 2026 ... before market open. Consensus EPS: $15.92.
3. Microsoft (MSFT) ... Late April 2026
👉 If the banks set the tone for the first half of April... Microsoft owns the second half.
Microsoft's Azure cloud division grew 31% year over year last quarter, with AI services contributing 13 percentage points of that growth.
That number is the only thing traders care about when Microsoft reports.
Microsoft committed $80 billion in AI infrastructure spending for fiscal 2026.
👉 More than any other company on earth. That capex is converting into Azure revenue quarter by quarter.
Traders want to see that conversion rate accelerating, not slowing.
One number. Azure growth rate. Watch it. Everything else on the call is noise compared to that figure.
📅 Microsoft Q1 2026 earnings: Expected late April 2026. Azure growth guidance is the market moving number.
4. Alphabet (GOOGL) ... April 28, 2026
Alphabet reports April 28, after market close. Consensus EPS: $2.60. Revenue forecast: $106.6 billion.
Google Cloud grew 32% in Q2 2025 and Alphabet just guided $175 to $185 billion in capex for 2026... nearly double what it spent last year.
That is an enormous bet on AI infrastructure and cloud dominance.
The question April 28 answers is simple. Is all that spending actually showing up in Cloud revenue?
If Google Cloud reports above 30% growth again and management sounds confident on AI monetization... Alphabet has serious upside from here.
The Wiz acquisition... a $32 billion cloud security deal expected to close in 2026...
...also adds an immediate enterprise security footprint that no other cloud provider can match right now.
📅 Alphabet Q1 2026 earnings: April 28, 2026 ... after market close. EPS forecast $2.60. Revenue forecast $106.6 billion.
5. Meta Platforms (META) ... Late April 2026
Meta does not get enough credit for how well it has executed the AI pivot.
Meta's AI-driven ad targeting has reignited advertiser spending across Instagram and Facebook.
Revenue growth has been double digit for six consecutive quarters.
And Meta AI... the company's consumer AI assistant... now has over 700 million monthly active users.
The Magnificent Seven as a whole is forecast to deliver +23.7% earnings growth in Q1 2026. Meta is one of the primary drivers of that number.
➡️ With AI powering ad efficiency and Reels continuing to dominate short form video... the Q1 setup is strong.
The number to watch is operating margin. Meta has been aggressively controlling costs while growing revenue. If margins expand again in Q1... the stock moves.
📅 Meta Q1 2026 earnings: Expected late April 2026. Watch operating margin and AI monetization commentary.
The April Calendar That Matters
• April 13 ... Goldman Sachs reports. The IB and M&A story gets confirmed or denied.
• April 14 ... JPMorgan reports. Dimon sets the tone for the entire economy.
• Late April ... Microsoft reports. Azure growth rate moves the Nasdaq.
• April 28 ... Alphabet reports. Google Cloud growth answers the AI monetization question.
• Late April ... Meta reports. Operating margin and AI ad revenue tell the rest of the story.
The traders who win April earnings season are already in position. The ones who lose are still watching the news when it happens.
👉 Five reports.
Five market moving events.
All crammed into roughly three weeks.
You do not need to trade all of them.
You need to understand what each one means... and know which setups have the clearest risk to reward going in.
That is exactly the kind of insight GPSM Next Big Cap Alerts delivers every single week.
Real time alerts. Real setups. Before the crowd figures it out.
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