The first-quarter earnings season has been sensational. Many companies knocked it out of the park when delivering earnings and revenue numbers that well beyond expectations. With reports now in from about 96% of S&P 500 companies, earnings have climbed a staggering 29% from last quarter. Information Technology, up 56%, and Communication Services, up 51%, have led the pack. At the bottom are Healthcare, down 3%, and Energy, down 1%. With earnings season essentially over, we have had a chance to look at trends. In particular, we watch for companies that raised guidance as we view that action as a likely catalyst for market-beating returns in the quarters ahead. It's even harder for companies to raise guidance during uncertain economic times, as vision is murky. The following is a partial list of companies in Argus' Fundamental Universe of Coverage where management raised its outlook during the 1Q26 reporting season.

Verizon is a leader in the U.S. telecommunications industry. The company was created in July 2000 when Bell Atlantic and GTE merged. Operations include fiber and broadband, 5G and 4G LTE network capabilities, and Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) infrastructure. Fios by Verizon provides bundled internet, television, and telephone service in nine states with seven million digital connections. Revenues in 2025 were $138 billion. The company is focused on growing its subscribers and broadband footprint through acquisitions. As of the beginning of 2026, the company had just under 147 million wireless retail connections and over 16 million fixed wireless and fiber broadband connections. The company has FCC spectrum licenses to provide wireless services on low- to mid-band spectrum covering nearly all of the U.S. population. Verizon also has licenses for millimeter wave spectrum and citizens broadband radio service. The company also has wholesale wireline services. Verizon is a component of the S&P 500. The current market cap is $201 billion.

Earnings season is in full swing, a time when insider-transaction volume always slows because of trading restrictions that are in place for corporate executives, directors, and beneficial owners. While that typically results in 'weak' volume-deprived insider-sentiment readings, we note that the major stock indices are also at or near all-time highs. And investors of all stripes, insiders included, are known to take money off the table when the stocks they own have never been so valuable. End of day, there are viable explanations for insider-sentiment data that is less than stellar, as is the case now. Looking at the weekly data from Vickers Stock Research, the NYSE One-Week Sell/Buy Ratio is now 8.38; the same ratio for the Nasdaq is 8.91; and the Total (all exchanges) ratio is 8.68. Those readings are on a scale where any result above 6.00 is bearish. But based on the above offsets, we are far from suggesting that the sky is likely to fall. Drilling down to sector sell/buy ratios, four sectors recorded bullish one-week sell/buy ratios over the past week, while two recorded bearish sentiment. Communication Services, Healthcare, Real Estate, and Utility were all bullish during the period, while Information Technology and Materials were bearish. While volume was light across most sectors, this was not the case for Information Technology, where 174 transactions resulted in a particularly high (bearish) sell/buy ratio of 173.0. Zooming out, six sectors recorded a bullish eight-week sell/buy ratio, including Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Financial, Healthcare, Industrial, and Real Estate, while Communication Services, Energy, and Information Technology were bearish. This week, analysts at Vickers highlighted insider transactions of interest at United Rentals Inc. (NYSE: URI) and PriceSmart Inc. (NGS: PSMT).

Value stocks -- a market segment that includes high-yield stocks -- outperformed growth stocks in 2022. In 2025, value stocks and growth stocks had similar returns, with growth advancing 13.8% and value returning 13.6%. That's a recent rarity, as for the past decade-plus, the performance record has favored growth. But in 2022, the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines gave a lift to some of the cyclical companies (energy and regional banks), and value stocks outpaced growth stocks that year. While growth stocks led for a few years after that, value stocks are back in the picture as investors rotate out of higher-priced AI growth stocks in search of more reasonable valuations. Value stocks tend to be more resilient in times of market uncertainty and higher volatility as they are less likely to overreact to economic news. In any event, the value sector is the place to achieve income.