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GLP-1s and Aetna's Recovery Drive the Beat; Guidance Is What Splits the Stocks

Eli Lilly and CVS both raised full-year outlooks on obesity-drug demand and insurance margin repair, while Uber, Global Payments and Flutter show the market punishing forward guidance regardless of the quarter delivered.

August 5, 2026 Earnings

Lilly's obesity franchise is still accelerating, and it is going international

Eli Lilly's second quarter was the cleanest upside in the batch: revenue up 48% to $23.0 billion, with Mounjaro's worldwide sales up 91% to $9.94 billion against a $8.99 billion estimate and Zepbound's U.S. revenue up 44% to $4.93 billion versus $4.69 billion expected. The more important detail is geographic — revenue outside the U.S. jumped 80% to $8.6 billion on a 113% volume surge, with Mounjaro's ex-U.S. sales up 172%, even as realized prices outside the U.S. fell 36%. Lilly raised full-year revenue guidance to $85–87 billion from $82–85 billion and shares rose more than 5% premarket. The one soft spot: newly launched obesity pill Foundayo booked $98 million against a roughly $103 million FactSet forecast, its first quarter of reported revenue. Note also that reported EPS carried $3.03 of acquired IPR&D charges, offsetting a $2.78 midpoint raise to underlying profit guidance — the M&A spree is real and it is showing up in the printed number.

CVS makes it six straight beats as Aetna's medical ratio finally moves

CVS raised 2026 adjusted EPS guidance to $7.90–$8.10 from $7.30–$7.50 and revenue to at least $414 billion from $405 billion, with adjusted Q2 EPS of $2.58 against a $1.85 consensus. The number investors were watching was Aetna's medical benefit ratio, which fell to 87.4% from 89.9% a year earlier and beat a 90.03% estimate; health services operating profit rose 10% to $1.73 billion, helped by slowing Oak Street expansion and closing 16 underperforming locations. Management explicitly kept a 'cautious view' on high medical costs and the broader economy, so this is margin repair rather than an all-clear. The Lilly and CVS stories intersect directly: CVS announced a collaboration to make Zepbound and Foundayo accessible through its app by early Q4, and $29 MinuteClinic weight-loss appointments covering Wegovy, Foundayo and Zepbound — distribution economics for the GLP-1 category are being rewritten in the same week the volumes are being reported.

Uber, Flutter and Global Payments: the quarter was fine, the outlook wasn't

Uber beat on the quarter — total bookings of $58 billion topped the $57.23 billion estimate, mobility bookings rose 22% to $28.99 billion, delivery 26% to $27.46 billion, and net income nearly doubled to $2.39 billion — but guided Q3 bookings to $59.25 billion at the midpoint against a $59.33 billion estimate and EPS of 84–88 cents versus 89 cents expected. With the stock down 12% year-to-date against a 14% Nasdaq gain, that shortfall matters more than the beat, particularly alongside a commitment of over $10 billion to autonomous vehicles and Waymo's exit from exclusivity in Atlanta and Austin by early 2028. The same pattern shows up in Global Payments, which fell on lowered full-year guidance, and Flutter, which tumbled after cutting U.S. revenue guidance. The counterexamples cut the other way: Coca-Cola HBC and Legal & General both lifted 2026 outlooks, and Zimmer Biomet rose 4% on beats plus raised guidance.

Disney buys back more, and leans on the parks

Disney posted adjusted EPS of $2.06 against $1.86 expected on revenue up 7% to $25.17 billion, just short of the $25.38 billion consensus — an earnings beat driven by cost discipline and Experiences rather than the top line. Parks and Experiences revenue rose 10% to $9.97 billion, with U.S. park attendance up 3%, per-customer spending up 3% and resort-and-vacation revenue up 17%, reversing the prior quarter's attendance dip. The capital-returns signal was the sharper part of the release: proceeds of $1.2 billion from selling the 50% A+E Global Media stake to Hearst push 2026 buybacks to $9 billion from $8 billion, with CEO Josh D'Amaro calling the shares undervalued after a 17% decline over the past year. Shares rose over 4% premarket.

The tape's reaction function: beats aren't enough

Across the season the dispersion is striking — Palantir surged nearly 30% and Caterpillar jumped on results, while AMD slipped overnight despite a forecast-beating update, which Stifel is looking through with a reiterated Buy and $635 target. The read across these reactions is that positioning and guidance, not the printed quarter, are setting the move. HSBC makes the point in reverse: first-half results beat, with Q2 pretax profit just over $10 billion against $9.5 billion consensus, a fresh $1 billion buyback and a raised net interest income target, and the shares hit a record — after which Citi downgraded to neutral on a 40% year-to-date run, cutting its target to 1570p and flagging that incremental cost spending and a volume-growth push may cap buybacks and 2027 operating leverage.

Sources

Not investment advice.