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Reports Tuesday, October 27, 2026. Prepared Monday, October 26, 2026. This is the Q3 2026 print (quarter ending September 30). It has not been reported. Results at about 7:15 a.m. Eastern, call at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, before the cash open. October 27 is the reaction session. Last reported quarter is Q2 2026, released the morning of July 28, 2026, the first call after the Mobility spin closed on July 1. S&P Global is a calendar-year company. The homepage calendar labels this date 2026Q4. That tag is one quarter ahead of the quarter being reported. This page is 2026Q3.

SPGI | Earnings Preview

S&P Global reports Q3 on Tuesday, October 27. The quarter is not in Daloopa. The standing word is still the July 28 call. Organic constant-currency growth was held at 6% to 8% after a first half that management rounded to about 11%. Adjusted diluted EPS was reset, because Mobility is out for the whole year, to $17.50–$17.75. That is double-digit growth against the ex-Mobility 2025 base of $15.85, not a cut versus the old $19.40–$19.65 range that still included Mobility. Nothing since July 28 has replaced those ranges. Barclays on September 14 restated them. The September 29 release only set the date.

Growth trajectory, not the dollar level. Organic constant-currency growth went from 9% in Q3 2025 to 8% in Q4 2025, then 9% in Q1 2026 and 11% in Q2 2026. That is +200 bps from Q1 to Q2 and +200 bps versus the quarter this print is judged against. The 6–8% year is 300 to 500 bps slower than the quarter just printed. The divisions did not move together. Ratings organic went from 10% to 16%, +600 bps. Indices organic went from 11% to 19%, +800 bps. Market Intelligence organic went from 8% to 6%, −200 bps, and has sat at 6% for two quarters. Energy is the soft spot already cut: external revenue grew only +2.3% in Q2, from $555 million to $568 million, under a 4.5–6% year.

The Q2 print that sets the base was a growth quarter, on the post-spin line. Pro forma revenue was $3,678 million versus $3,317 million, +10.9%. Pro forma adjusted EPS was $4.83 versus $3.92, +23.2%. Pro forma adjusted operating margin was 54% versus 52%, +200 bps. The call was tighter: 54.3%, and +270 bps excluding prior-year OSTTRA. Do not set the $3,678 million figure against as-reported Q2 2025 revenue of $3,755 million. That comparison puts Mobility back in the base and turns a +10.9% quarter into a fake decline. As-reported Q2 revenue, Mobility still inside, was $4,146 million versus $3,755 million, +10.4%.

Margins expanded faster than the year they guided. The full-year ex-OSTTRA bridge is only 75 bps to 100 bps, raised 25 bps in July. Another +200 bps quarter would not fit that year. Eric Aboaf said the difference is reinvestment of some Ratings and Indices upside. Pre-spin adjusted EPS growth was already decelerating, from +21.6% in Q3 2025 to +14.1% in Q4 2025 to +13.7% in Q1 2026, before the spin reset the base. The Q2 +23.2% is a new comparison. It is not an acceleration stacked on the +13.7%.

What consensus is underwriting. FMP for the unreported October 27 row is EPS $4.43 and revenue $3,643 million. Versus reported Q3 2025 that is about −6.4% on EPS against $4.73 and −6.3% on revenue against $3,888 million. Both declines are the perimeter. Mobility was $445 million of that revenue. Continuing revenue on that bridge is $3,443 million, so the Street is +5.8%. Versus ex-Mobility adjusted EPS of $4.20, $4.43 is +5.5%, roughly 1,770 bps slower than Q2’s +23.2% on the pro forma base. That is the deceleration management described. It is not a test of whether 11% continues. FY EPS of $17.84 is $0.09 above the $17.75 cap and +1.2% versus the $17.625 midpoint. The quarterly Street for the second half sits near the top of the +1% to +5% band the reported-growth guide implies. The annual revenue file does not foot to those quarters and sits above the implied high. Use the quarterly number for the print.

What to watch on October 27

• Organic growth versus 11%, not versus a cleared 6%. Matching Q3 2025’s 9% would still be above the guide and would be a −200 bps step down from Q2. A print under 6% is the first time this year the range would be a miss rather than a floor.
• Ratings issuance, and the Moody’s mix. Transaction revenue was $746 million versus $597 million, +25.0%, and billed issuance was +25%. The year is only mid- to high-single digit, and the Q3 2025 transaction base is already $668 million. Moody’s October 21 print was investment grade up and leveraged finance down, with ratings revenue about −1%. Segment consensus is in the same place.
• Indices can stay strong and still be inside a raised guide. Organic 19% versus a 12–14% year. Segment consensus is still about +18%. Asset-linked fees do not have the issuance-compare problem Ratings has.
• Market Intelligence is the range they are actually running, and the Street is below it. Organic has been about 6% against 5.5–7%. Segment consensus near +2% would put the year on Q4. A print near 6% would say the Street over-weighted elongated renewals.
• Energy has to improve just to hold 4.5–6%. Q2 was below the floor. The upstream software sale closed September 1 and was already in the organic guide. A weak reported dollar after that close is not, by itself, a new cut.
• The 2025 tariff air pocket is the easy compare, not a new tariff line. Q2 2025 billed issuance was −4%. Management has said since February that Q3 issuance growth steps down and Q4 can turn negative because 2025 started low and finished high. Tariffs and sanctions are also still named inside Energy. There is no separate Q3 tariff bridge.
• Margin and the buyback are the lines they did raise. Ex-OSTTRA expansion of 75–100 bps does not require another +200 bps quarter. Repurchases of more than $7 billion, after $1,500 million in the first half, need the second half to do more than $5.5 billion, with leverage guided above the target range on purpose.

No guide has been withdrawn. Martina Cheung and Eric Aboaf are still CEO and CFO. The October 27 date has not moved. Internal models, Visible Alpha, Bloomberg, SharePoint, OneNote, and Outlook were not available.

S&P Global does not guide a quarter. There is no Q3 revenue range, no Q3 EPS range, and no Q3 margin level. Classification: conservative on the enterprise organic range versus the run-rate. They printed 11% and 9% and did not lift 6–8%. The raises went into Ratings (+1 point), Indices (+2 points), ex-OSTTRA margin (+25 bps), and the buyback (more than $7 billion). The new Ratings and Indices ranges are still below the Q2 prints. Energy was cut in April and left there. Market Intelligence is the one range they are delivering, at about 6%, not a sandbag.

The reported-growth range of 5.9% to 7.9% is the organic range plus acquisitions and divestitures of −0.2% and FX of +0.1%. Applied to 2025 revenue minus Mobility — $15,336 million minus $1,747 million, or $13,589 million — that is about $14.39–$14.66 billion. First-half ex-Mobility revenue was about $7,395 million, +10.8% versus about $6,674 million. The residual second half is only about +1% to +5% against a $6,915 million base. FMP’s Q3 plus Q4, $7,245 million, is +4.8%, near the top of that band. FMP’s FY revenue average of $14,830 million does not foot to the quarters and sits above the implied high. The annual file is not used as a clean beat or miss against the guide. The EPS comparison is clean: FMP $17.84 versus a cap of $17.75.

Two finished years opened low, were raised, and finished at or above the last pre-Q4 high end on the initial guide. 2024 still cleared the final EPS high. 2025 landed $0.02 under a high end they had already lifted. They are not a chronic misser. They are a conservative opener that usually spends the year giving the beat back to the guide. 2026 has not followed the 2024 script. The organic range has already been cleared for two quarters and was not lifted. They also said, in words, that the second half is the payback. An in-line Q3 against 6% organic would satisfy the guide and break the reading that 11% is the new run-rate.

Q3 2026 has not printed. No driver is guided for the quarter. Consensus exists at consolidated revenue, EPS, and FMP EBITDA. FMP EBITDA is not adjusted operating profit. A 54% margin on a roughly $3.6 billion quarter is a different line from FMP’s $2,123 million EBITDA estimate. Internal is n/a on every row. Where the column says percent versus last year, the base is the same quarter a year ago, not the sequential quarter.

Current quarter — Q3 2026

The Ratings year of 5–8% after a +16.6% supplemental quarter ($1,339 million versus $1,148 million) only leaves about +1% for the second half at the high end. Indices at a 14% high end still allows about +10% in the half after H1 of about +18%. Market Intelligence H1 reported growth of about +7% can continue and stay inside 5.5–7%. Energy cannot: H1 was already on the 4.5% floor. The subscription and asset-linked lines are not what forces the 6–8% year. Issuance is. Billed issuance was +14% in Q1 and +25% in Q2, against a year that is only mid- to high-single digit, and against a Q3 2025 compare that was already +13%.

Next quarter — Q4 2026

No revenue, EPS, or margin guide for Q4. The only Q4-relevant statement is that second-half compares are lower than the first half, and that hyperscaler issuance in the back half is not a repeat of the first half. The $250–$300 billion hyperscaler year, after about $169 billion in the first half, leaves about $81–$131 billion for the whole second half, not a Q4 number. Q4 2025 organic growth was 8%. The Street’s Q4 ex-Mobility +3.8% is the slower of the two remaining quarters.

Full-year framework still in force — FY2027 is not guided

This is the guide already on the books heading into the print. FY2027 has no range. Management said growth after this year should normalize to the 6–8% Investor Day band. That is not an FY2027 outlook with a low and a high. FMP FY2027 revenue of $15,612 million and EPS of $20.17 are consensus only, +5.3% and +13.0% versus the FY2026 averages. The faster EPS step is what the margin and buyback framework is for. It is not a company guide.

Trajectory into the print

Columns are quarters. Growth rates are versus the same quarter a year earlier. Comparing those rates is the trajectory. It is not a sequential comparison of the dollars. Q3 2026 is not on the table. Reported revenue through Q2 2026 still includes Mobility. The organic series is the one that matches management’s 11%.

Reported revenue growth reaccelerated from +5.8% in Q2 2025 and then held at +10.4% for two quarters. That hold is not a new acceleration, and it is not the series behind 11%. The pro forma Q2 compare is +10.9% on $3,678 million versus $3,317 million, and +23.2% on EPS. External-customer revenue in that quarter: Ratings $1,293 million versus $1,105 million, +17.0%, and +346 bps faster than Q1’s +13.6% ($1,257 million versus $1,107 million). Indices $531 million versus $443 million, +19.9%, and +312 bps faster than Q1’s +16.7% ($516 million versus $442 million). Market Intelligence $1,286 million versus $1,214 million, +5.9%, and −210 bps versus Q1’s +8.0% ($1,292 million versus $1,196 million). Energy +2.3%, and −419 bps versus Q1’s +6.5% ($652 million versus $612 million). Ratings and Indices sped up. The two subscription-heavy divisions slowed. Profit still grew in all four, and consolidated margin expanded. The absolute Daloopa margin percents are rounded. The call is the source for 68.5%, 71.5%, 36%, and 47.5%, and for +310, +90, +120, and +70 bps.

What would make the conservative label wrong on the night: Q3 organic already inside 6–8%, with Ratings transaction revenue rolling over in dollars, not just in the growth rate, and Market Intelligence still at 6% with no offset from Indices. What would confirm it: organic still near 11%, or transaction dollars holding the Q2 level of $746 million against the $668 million compare, while the full-year organic range stays 6–8%. The second outcome leaves the guide as a floor.

July was more confident than April on the things management controls, and just as careful on issuance cadence. The opening adjective was “very strong,” ahead of expectations on reported and organic revenue. The enterprise organic range did not move. That is the same instinct as April, when they reiterated 6–8% and cut only Energy, and the opposite of October 2025, when they wrote the beat into the guide. February is the call that set the low 2026 range they still have not lifted. They also missed on the cautious side in April, when they said Ratings would not accelerate in Q2 and it did, from 11% organic to 16%. They raised the Ratings range by a point and did not take back the second-half slowdown. The record they recited in February is real: 2025 finished at the high end of a guide they had raised. The Q2 behavior matches that record. They raised what beat. They did not annualize a hot first half.

Six assumptions are doing the work.

1. Billed issuance finishes the year at mid- to high-single-digit growth, which requires the year-over-year rate to fall. The February path was explicit: up in Q1, faster in Q2 against the 2025 tariff air pocket, slower in Q3, negative in Q4. July updated the year to mid- to high-single digits after +25% in Q2 versus −4% a year earlier. Dollar levels can stay high while the rate falls. That is the Q3 setup, not a demand break they have already booked.
2. Hyperscaler issuance is helpful and is not underwritten to repeat the first half. About $169 billion was billed in the first half against an original year of about $200 billion. The updated year is $250–$300 billion. Martina Cheung’s translation was “no heroic assumptions.” Investment grade is still described as 40–45% of the mix. Large frequent-issuer deals price tighter, so notional does not pass one-for-one into revenue.
3. Mobility is out, and 6–8% only survives because Ratings and Indices offset it. Mobility had grown faster and earned a modestly lower margin. Q3 and Q4 report it in discontinued operations. The upstream energy-software sale was assumed to close in Q3 and was built into the organic guide. It closed on September 1. That removes a timing caveat. It does not add growth.
4. Market Intelligence at about 6% is the run-rate they are willing to own. Organic, subscription, and ACV were all about 6% for a second quarter. Platforms, the larger piece, are low-single-digit organic. Kensho is smaller and faster. Consulting and sustainability are the lagging products. A Q1 timing headwind that was supposed to reverse was not put back on the July bridge. AI-customer ACV was described as 60% faster than the Market Intelligence average. They intend to fund the build from productivity, not from a margin giveback.
5. Energy’s hole is called cyclical. The Iran conflict, sanctions, tariffs, and extreme volatility that eventually sidelines Global Transaction Services were the Q2 list. CERA grew 1% on the call. They have not declared the conflict stabilized. If they stop saying “transitory” on October 27, this is the division guide that moves.
6. Margin expansion and the buyback are how EPS grows faster than 6–8% revenue. Some of the benchmark upside is being reinvested. Gross leverage is guided to about 2.7–2.8x EBITDA at year-end, above the 2.0–2.5x target, with a return to the range by the end of 2027. The debt has a stated reason. Timing depends on markets, so a closed credit market delays the EPS help, not the operating guide.

The peers that matter have already reported. Moody’s on October 21 is the ratings read-through that conflicts with SPGI’s Q2 slope: ratings revenue about −1%, transaction revenue down, investment-grade and hyperscaler issuance up, high-yield and bank loans down, the year reaffirmed, and consensus missed. Those Moody’s dollars are the company’s October 21 release, not Daloopa figures, so they are not given source ids. MSCI on October 20 described the index shape SPGI already has: asset-based fees up faster than subscription. FactSet on September 30 is a workflow comp for Market Intelligence and does not reset the Ratings question. CME, not in Daloopa’s industry list, described record market-data revenue and is color for derivatives, not for billed issuance. ICE is on the repo calendar two days later and is not a prior read-through. Nothing on the industry list is still scheduled between this note and Tuesday morning.

Post-guide, the ranges did not move. Barclays on September 14, Daloopa document 27187119, repeated harder second-half comparisons, mid- to high-single-digit issuance for the year, and Energy first-half growth of about 4% with Q2 as the low point. The “50 to 75 basis points over time” sentence is the Investor Day pace, not a cut of the 2026 ex-OSTTRA bridge of 75–100 bps. The October 23 8-K supplies unaudited pro forma financials for the separation. It is not a Q3 result and it is not a new range. The chief legal officer change on October 9 is a stated retirement, not a CEO or CFO change.

The positive tell on the call is the one they already gave in July: Ratings and Indices still carrying the year, margin still expanding after the reinvestment, and $17.50–$17.75 left where it is. FMP already sits $0.09 above that ceiling. A raise that only catches the Street is not a new fact. The miss versus their own words would be an Energy quarter that forces them to drop “transitory,” a Market Intelligence subscription rate that slips out of the 6% area, or a billed-issuance update that abandons the second-half slowdown because hyperscaler and M&A volumes did not cool.

Consensus is not underwriting another Q2. It is underwriting a step-down in Ratings, a still-fast Indices quarter, and a Market Intelligence print below the guide. Company-level numbers are FMP. Segment revenue is Zacks on October 22–23, because FMP does not publish segments. One Zacks transaction-versus-non-transaction pair does not reconcile to the Ratings lines and is excluded.

Ratings is the swing factor, and consensus has already marked it down. U.S. issuance in Q2 was $1,170 billion versus $882 billion, +32.7%. Investment grade was $539 billion versus $429 billion, +25.6%. High yield was $169 billion versus $147 billion, +15.0%. The Q3 2025 bases are not uniform: investment grade of $392 billion is an easier compare than Q2’s, while high yield of $185 billion is harder. A flat Ratings quarter does not, by itself, break a 5–8% year. It does say the Street expects almost all of the remaining Ratings growth to be a first-half story. A beat needs better yield on the jumbo book than Moody’s saw, or a smaller leveraged-finance hole. A miss looks like Moody’s.

Indices is where consensus is still willing to pay for trajectory. Ending ETF AUM on the Q2 bridge was about $6.35 trillion, +34%, from $4,735 billion plus price appreciation of $1,010 billion and net inflows of $605 billion. Consensus has haircut 34% AUM growth to 18% revenue growth and stopped there. That is above the raised 12–14% year. The risk is pass-through, not a volume air pocket.

The hyperscaler financing cycle Ratings itself is describing cuts both ways. An August 27 Ratings note put combined capex for the large platforms above $1.3 trillion by 2027, with negative free operating cash flow and more structured debt. On October 19, S&P’s digital-infrastructure lead told reporters that more AI-linked liabilities may sit outside disclosed debt, and that no rating changes were warranted yet. That supports activity. It is also the credit-quality question if the cycle stalls. It does not revise the $250–$300 billion assumption. A separate tally through August, not SPGI billed issuance, already had five hyperscalers near the top of that year before the fourth quarter. That supports “not much incremental left,” not a new upside case.

The window is July 28 through October 26, excluding the Q2 release itself and the September 29 scheduling notice. Nothing in it resets the post-spin guide. The news is tuck-ins and AI distribution. Agusto and OpenZeppelin are not closed. datacenterHawk and the upstream software sale closed and were called immaterial. The commercial thread is Market Intelligence, the slower division: With Intelligence inside Capital IQ Pro, and ratings, Visible Alpha, and iLEVEL pushed into customer AI tools. No adoption or revenue figure was disclosed. The live fundamental swing factor is still Ratings issuance.

Pre-earnings red flags checked against this flow: the date was not delayed, the quarterly dividend was held at $0.97 rather than cut, and there is no CEO or CFO departure. The chief legal officer change is a stated retirement with a successor already named. No guidance was withdrawn. Routine index reconstitutions are omitted.

Every acquisition the company sized said “not material,” and the two that would expand Ratings geography or technology-risk coverage are not closed. Energy got cleaner, not bigger. Indices added an on-chain proof point on October 13 with no disclosed fee. Market Intelligence’s releases are a distribution plan for a division that has stopped accelerating. The item that can move the division that carried the last beat is the financing cycle Ratings is describing, and Moody’s has already shown what a jumbo-heavy, leveraged-finance-light quarter looks like.

S&P Global is a consistent beater. On adjusted EPS, 10 of the last 12 reported quarters were beats and 3 of the last 4. The two misses, 2023 Q4 and 2025 Q4, were each under 1%. On a like-for-like revenue basis, 12 of 12 were beats. Beat size has narrowed, not flipped. Average adjusted-EPS surprise was about +6.2% in both the oldest four and the middle four, then +4.3% over the last four. Average revenue surprise fell from +2.8% in 2024 Q3–2025 Q2 to +1.2% in 2025 Q3–2026 Q2.

FMP’s retained file tells the same EPS story and a worse revenue story, because the 2026 Q2 revenue estimate was never reset for the spin. FMP’s $3,678 million actual versus a $4,093 million estimate is a −10.1% “miss” created by leaving Mobility inside the bar. The scored cell is the print-day pro forma pair: Zacks revenue $3.68 billion versus $3.65 billion, +0.8%, against pro forma revenue of $3,678 million. Zacks scored adjusted EPS $4.83 versus $4.49, +7.6%. FMP’s retained EPS estimate of $4.81 has been walked up to the actual and is not the print-day bar. Direction of the EPS beat does not depend on $4.49 versus a later $4.63 aggregate. Direction of the revenue cell does depend on the Mobility reset. 2026 Q1 uses the print-day adjusted pair of $4.97 versus $4.82, not FMP’s retained $4.70 versus $4.58, which is a near-GAAP line and is also a beat.

2025 Q4 is the template for a miss that is not a demand miss. Revenue still cleared, at $3,916 million versus a $3,908 million bar, +0.2%. Adjusted EPS of $4.30 missed by $0.02 to $0.04 depending on the source. Eric Aboaf said the tax rate was inside the range but near the high end, and that the midpoint would have added about $0.08 of EPS. That gap more than covers the miss. The base case for Tuesday is another modest beat, not a 2024-sized one. A beat that depends on FMP’s unadjusted Q2 history is the wrong base case.

The pattern is not “they miss when Ratings slow.” Revenue keeps clearing by less, and EPS has missed only when something below operating profit, so far tax, takes back a few cents. Inside the last four the EPS path is uneven: +7.0%, −0.7%, +3.1%, +7.6%. The compression is 2025 Q4 and 2026 Q1. Q2 re-widened the EPS beat because Ratings, Indices, and the margin did the work, on a post-spin base, with adjusted expenses up 6% on the call against revenue up 11%. 2026 Q3 actuals are null. The historical record says a modest beat of $4.43 and $3,643 million is the base case. Clearing that bar would still be the deceleration they described on July 28. It would not, by itself, force the $17.75 cap higher.