American Express (AXP) heads into its Q1 2026 earnings report on April 23 in decent shape — but decent might be the problem.
The fundamentals are solid. Spending is holding up. Credit quality is fine. But for a stock that still carries a premium multiple, “fine” doesn’t always cut it.
Wall Street is expecting around 9.6% year-over-year growth in both EPS and revenue. That’s steady. It’s just not exciting.
The core issue is billed business — card member spending — which is the single metric the market watches most closely with AXP. It grew 8% YoY in Q4 2025, in line with the rest of FY25. But after ticking up from 6% in Q1 2025 to 7% in Q2, growth has essentially flatlined.
That kind of trajectory starts to look more like a mature, steady grower — which sits uneasily with a 21.4x trailing earnings multiple.
On the credit side, there’s not much to worry about. Write-offs came in at $1.27 billion in Q4, up from $1.13 billion a year earlier, but the sequential increase was moderate.
Provisions edged up to $1.41 billion from $1.28 billion in Q3. The reserve build, though, was just $141 million — down from $222 million in Q2 2025. That’s not a warning sign. It’s a volume-driven adjustment.
Net interest income grew 12% YoY, loans grew 7%, and margins expanded. This points to credit growth that is profitable and controlled. The read here is normalization, not deterioration.
Jim Cramer flagged AXP on a recent episode of Mad Money, with a word of caution for buyers ahead of the print.
“American Express almost always seems to retreat when we see the numbers and then runs a couple of days later,” Cramer said. His advice: wait until the end of earnings day — or the following morning — before buying, to avoid the “knee-jerk selling” that tends to follow even solid results.
Cramer has also pointed to AXP’s premium customer base as a structural positive. “Demand for premium products can stay strong even if the rest of the economy slows down,” he said in early April.
Bank of America’s Q1 results, reported April 15, offer a useful health check on consumer spending. Card spending was up 6% YoY, with growth led by travel, services, and retail. Since Amex skews wealthier, it’s likely doing at least as well — making high single-digit billed business growth the floor expectation for Q1.
AXP is currently trading around 18.5x forward earnings, roughly 20% below its December peak. That decompression lowers the bar for upside somewhat.
FY26 guidance calls for 9–10% revenue growth and EPS of $17.30–$17.90 — about 14% YoY growth. Analysts largely left their models unchanged after that guidance dropped.
Of the last 17 analyst ratings, seven are Buy, nine are Hold, and one is Sell. The average price target sits at $352.60, implying about 6.3% upside from current levels.
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