Shell Beat Earnings by 24% and the Stock Still Dropped — Welcome to Buyback Season
Retail traders are learning the hard way that a profit beat means nothing if you cut the buyback
Ticker Ratings
Let's talk about the cruelest joke in markets right now: beating earnings and still getting punished. $SHEL dropped after reporting a 24% profit beat — yes, twenty-four percent — because it trimmed its quarterly buyback from $3.5B to $3B. Investors apparently wanted the check, not the trophy. Meanwhile, $ZG posted 18% year-over-year revenue growth, mortgage originations up 56%, rentals up 42%, and the stock still got slapped in after-hours on light Q2 profit guidance. The market giveth, and the market absolutely taketh away.
The lone unambiguous winner this cycle? $AMD, up ~18% on earnings day and 325% on a trailing 12-month basis, with Goldman Sachs piling on with a buy upgrade citing enterprise agentic AI as the demand engine. Tom Lee on Bloomberg noted semis trade at just 22x forward P/E vs. a 20-year high of 35x — which means the AI hardware trade still has runway, even if $LRCX-adjacent names are priced for perfection. $MAR quietly beat estimates too, citing strong global travel demand despite the Iran war overhead.
The meta-lesson from this earnings season: the bar isn't 'beat estimates,' it's 'beat estimates AND give us everything we already priced in AND surprise us on top.' Good luck out there.