Earnings season is almost over, with about 97% of S&P 500 companies having reported as of Friday. Many knocked it out of the park, delivering earnings and revenue numbers that were well ahead of expectations. We always look at trends and, as usual, there are companies increasing guidance. Raising guidance is one of our Investing Themes for the second half of 2026. We view management's ability to raise guidance consistently as a catalyst for possible market-beating returns in the quarters ahead. It's even harder for companies to lift guidance during uncertain economic times, as vision is murky. This is true now, as the war in the Middle East drags on. As well, Wall Street has a new chairman of the Federal Reserve, one with a different view about forward-looking guidance (or in this case, a lack thereof). As many companies increased guidance during this earnings cycle, we put out two lists. The first was back on August 3 -- and now we offer up our second list, made up of companies in Argus' fundamental Universe of Coverage. Many of the names in this latest list are in the consumer space, as these companies tend to report at the end of earnings season.

Lear Corp. engages in the design, manufacture, and supply of automotive seat, electrical distribution systems, and electronic modules, as well as related subsystems, components, and software. It operates through two segments: Seating and E-Systems. The Seating segment consists of the design, engineering, just-in-time assembly, and delivery of complete seat systems, as well as the manufacture of all major seat components, including seat covers and surface materials such as leather and fabric, seat structures and mechanisms, seat foam, and headrests. The E-Systems segment consists of the design, development, engineering, and manufacture of electrical distribution systems, as well as electronic control modules, electrification products, connectivity products, and software solutions for the cloud, vehicles, and mobile devices. The company was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Southfield, Michigan. Lear is a component of the S&P MidCap 400 index and employs approximately 164,300 people.

Earnings season is starting to slow but is by no means over, with multiple big-name and market-moving companies still to report - not to mention the many companies in industries that always bring up the rear in the reporting rotation. As such, the volume of weekly insider transactions reported by Vickers Stock Research remains low at about 1400 transactions that meet the criteria for publication in Vickers' Weekly Insider Report. This compares to well over 2000 weekly transactions when insiders can trade with less restriction. Moving beyond the light volume, the theme of overall insider sentiment this week 'holding steady,' with the major eight-week sell/buy ratios from Vickers little changed from last week and at either neutral or (just barely) bearish readings. On a sector basis, the broader trend is not significantly changed, but there has been some rotation in sentiment. Vickers' sector sentiment has improved modestly, with more sectors reporting bullish one-week sell/buy ratios (three) than are reporting bearish ratios (two). But that, of course, leaves six sector that are neutral. Drilling down, Communication Services, Consumer Staples, and Real Estate all bullish; Energy and Materials are bearish; and Consumer Discretionary, Financial, Healthcare, Industrial, Information Technology, and Utility are all neutral. This result was largely mirrored across the eight-week sell/buy ratios as, week-over-week, the number of neutral sectors increased (to five in total), while the number of bullish and bearish sectors each decreased (to five and one, respectively). This week, analysts at Vickers highlighted insider transactions of interest at Illumina Inc. (NGS: ILMN) and Agilysys Inc. (NGS: AGYS).

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.