S&P Global: 2Q26 EPS Beat; Guide Disappoints as MI and Energy Hit Turbulence While Ratings May Slow

Research evidence excerpt

S&P Global: 2Q26 EPS Beat; Guide Disappoints as MI and Energy Hit Turbulence While Ratings May Slow

Andrew C. Steinerman AC North America Equity Research

(1-212) 622-2527 29 July 2026 J P M O R G A N

andrew.steinerman@jpmorgan.com

• Market Intelligence slows down to (hopefully) speed up: Revenues at S&P

Global’s Market Intelligence (MI) division rose by just +6% y/y on an organic,

constant currency (o/cc) basis in 2Q26. While this performance was a modest

deceleration from +6.5% (as recast) and +6.3% (before the realignment) in 1Q26,

management had previously hoped for a subscription acceleration in 2Q26. S&P

flagged two reasons the acceleration did not materialize: 1) lengthened renewal

cycles; and 2) underwhelming performance in consulting and sustainability

revenues, where some small products may soon be candidates for sale. On point #1:

S&P is increasingly prioritizing AI-native solutions, within Kensho Data &

Platforms (61% of MI revenues in 2Q26). The sales cycle is longer for these

solutions and, by our understanding, extra time is often needed for both S&P Global

and its customers to spell out the terms on which AI will be integrated into

workflows at regulated institutions. By our read, meaningful revenue acceleration

may require MI to adjust to a slower sales cycle over the next few quarters. We

appreciate that management is addressing this dynamic head-on, spelling out that

Kensho Data & Platform’s strategy is now to “deliver our differentiated and

proprietary data in a channel-agnostic way, accelerating revenue growth at strong

incremental margins.” Specifically, this means investing behind Kensho data

products (~1/3rd of the sub-segment; think various data feeds, LLM-ready APIs, and

RatingsXpress), which is growing +HSD-LDD % presently.