Buy Hold Sell: US earnings season and 2 stocks (not Nvidia) that crushed it

US earnings season might be over, but the aftershocks are still rippling through markets. Headline numbers looked strong – S&P 500 EPS growth hit 15%, margins touched 15-year highs – yet beneath that glossy surface lies one of the most divided landscapes in years.

In 2025, the market is being pulled in two directions. On one side sits the AI complex, powered by hyperscaler capex that continues to be revised higher. On the other, almost everything tied to the real economy is slowing. Manufacturing is soft. Housing is sluggish. Consumer strength depends entirely on your postcode and pay grade. And in small and mid-caps, earnings beats were met with half the usual upside, while misses were punished with twice the usual downside. Volatility is back, and it’s ferocious.

As Michael Poulsen from Canopy Investors puts it, parts of the economy are still waiting for “a bit more clarity” before they invest again – yet beneath the uncertainty, he’s seeing early signs of life in long-neglected sectors like healthcare. Meanwhile, Nick Markiewicz from Ellerston Capital notes that “if you're not in AI, I'm not sure you're anywhere,” even as he quietly eyes high-quality compounders and homebuilders now trading on GFC-era multiples.

In this episode of Buy Hold Sell, we break down the winners, the warning signs, and the opportunities emerging from a wildly bifurcated reporting season. Plus, our guests reveal two stocks that absolutely crushed expectations.

Please note that this episode was filmed 19 November 2025

Other ways to listen

• Podbean
• Spotify

Edited Transcript

Chris Conway: Hello and welcome to Livewire's Buy Hold Sell, my name is Chris Conway. US earning season has all but wrapped up, so today we're going to take a look at the season that was, with a particular focus on the small and mid-cap space. To help me do that, I'm joined by Michael Poulsen from Canopy Investors and Nick Markiewicz from Ellerston Capital. Gents, we've got a lot to cover, so I'm going to dive right in. The big question first up, did earnings season live up to expectations? Michael, I'll come to you first.

Did US earnings season live up to expectations?

Michael Poulsen: So Chris, I'd say that there were some crosscurrents for us this quarter. On the one hand, we have a little bit more trade and tariff certainty, which is positive. There's obviously also a lot of CapEx spend that's going on in the US, particularly around data centres and AI, which is helping economic growth. Those are the positives. On the other hand, there is still actually quite a lot of policy uncertainty remaining in the US. We talk to manufacturers or industrials companies or chemicals companies and in some instances, they are deferring investment until they feel as though they've got a bit more clarity. On the consumer front, the picture's also a little bit mixed. If you're a high-income consumer, you might own your own home and have an investment in the stock market. Spending has been more resilient. Lower income and younger consumers are struggling. So mixed.

Chris Conway: Nick, what about you?

Nick Markiewicz: At a high-level, reporting season was probably a success at a 30,000-foot level. Corporate earnings were very strong. I think EPS growth at an aggregate level for the S&P 500 was 15%. Corporate profit margins are at the highest level in 15 years as well. So, companies at a headline level are in good health, but it's a very much a bifurcated market. It's the haves, the have-nots, by different sectors. So, if you're in the sectors that are growing, which is AI and a few others, earnings were very good, and if you're in a sector that's been struggling, then earnings were poor. One thing that I think did surprise me this reporting season was just the reactions to the different results. Earnings beats were met with half the usual upside and earnings misses were met with twice the usual downside - so huge volatility, and in small and mid-cap land, that volatility was even higher. So, a big set of outcomes.

Highlights of the season

Chris Conway: Nick, I'll stay with you. You touched on a few of them there, but let's go a little bit deeper, some of the highlights of the season for you.

Nick Markiewicz: The highlights was really just AI. I mean, if you're not in AI, I'm not sure you're anywhere in the current market. I mean, maybe I would've said that two weeks ago. The last two weeks has been a little bit different. But what we're really seeing is the CapEx spend from the hyperscalers, which is the most of the Mag 7. That CapEx continues to be upgraded and you can argue whether that's a good thing or a bad thing for the Mag 7, but for the rest of the AI ecosystem, the Mag 7 CapEx is their revenue at the end of the day, and so that's getting upgraded still. One of the advantages we have, being a truly global investor, is that we look at the AI supply chain all through Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China, and the comments from all the suppliers there points to a very rosy picture for 2026 as well. So definitely AI being the big bright point, but also banks and financials had a great set of numbers as well, on higher trading numbers, deal flow and loan growth.

Chris Conway: Michael, some highlights for you?

Michael Poulsen: Well, I'll talk about healthcare. We have a couple of service providers to the healthcare industry in the US. US healthcare has actually been quite weak over the course of the last 18 months, and that's for a few reasons. Large pharma companies have some blockbuster drugs that are rolling off. The biotech funding environment has been more difficult in the post-COVID period. There's also just been a lot of policy uncertainty around what Trump was going to do and what RFK was going to do. The highlight is we're starting to see a little bit of stability returning. So large pharma companies are starting to invest again, M&A and licencing and so on, and biotech funding looks as though it's starting to begin to improve. So those are positive factors.

What about the lowlights?

Chris Conway: We've done the fun stuff, gents, the good stuff. Now let's talk about some of the low lights. Michael, I'll stay with you.

Michael Poulsen: So there's a couple of sectors that I would call out to begin with. One, I've alluded to, and that's just the bifurcation in terms of the US consumer, particularly lower income and younger consumers. So, a couple of examples; Dollar General, which is a discount retailer in the US, it caters predominantly to lower income and more rural consumers, has said that it's starting to see evidence of consumers running out of money at the end of the month, even for basic essentials, which is obviously not great. Chipotle, which is a large quick service restaurant in the US has also said that it's seeing some evidence of macro issues among its low- and middle-income consumers eating at home as opposed to eating out, that sort of thing. The other area that I would call out is in US housing. So, the US housing market has been weak as a result of higher mortgage rates for a little while. We had seen some indications maybe in the middle of the year that things were starting to improve. It's now looking as though that recovery is going to take longer to play out.

Chris Conway: Nick, what about you? Some of the lowlights from the season?

Nick Markiewicz: Look, I just echo a lot of what Michael said. We've seen that anything touching the US real economy has actually been quite sluggish. For most companies, we're now seeing a lag effect from the tariffs and the uncertainty there and how that transpired into their investment decisions. So, anything outside of AI CapEx has been quite weak. US PMIs are still below 50, and so we're seeing that manifest in everything from weaker waste volumes, poor housing starts, and low CapEx for corporates outside of AI as I mentioned. So, some really disappointing numbers there. And also, the retail side - particularly on consumer staples - was not very encouraging.

Have you made any portfolio changes?

Chris Conway: Nick, let's talk about where the rubber meets the road. After all of that, any change in your US exposure or have you bought or sold anything off the back of the season?

Nick Markiewicz: No, no major changes. We're waiting and watching. What I would say is that there's a lot of actually really, really high quality names that have maybe hit a bit of a stumble or a speed bump, and we've actually seen quite large deratings for those companies, whether it's just earnings slowed slightly or their multiples were maybe a little bit too high, but certainly we're now looking at far more of these previously quality compounders that were very heavily owned. Their studies look quite interesting. I mentioned builders being a point of weakness, but builders are now starting to look interesting to us. The home builders in the US are now trading on GFC style multiples, which I think is quite extreme given they're far better businesses today. They've got great balance sheets and housing starts at some point will improve if rates keep coming down. So look, there's certainly pockets of interest, but we're waiting and seeing.

Chris Conway: Michael, same question for you. Any movement off the back of the season that was?

Michael Poulsen: Not a huge amount, Chris. So, we're bottom-up stock pickers, long-term investors, so we tend not to make significant portfolio changes based on relatively shorter term moves unless there's been a change in our thesis or we're seeing opportunities to improve the quality of the portfolio. I would echo what Nick said. We are seeing a lot of opportunities in quality companies that have been when the baby's been thrown out with the bathwater. Quality companies are on sale both in the US and internationally and so we're finding some good opportunities to add.

Guest picks

Chris Conway: My favourite part of any Buy Hold Sell episode, we're going to talk about some stocks now. I've asked the gents to bring along a stock that did very well for them in their portfolios during the season. Michael, I'll stay with you. What's one that shot the lights out?

Medpace Holdings (NASDAQ: MEDP)

Michael Poulsen: MedPace is a company we've got an investment in. That's one of those US healthcare services companies that I mentioned earlier. It effectively helps smaller biotech companies run their drug trials. It's got an amazing long-term track record, founder-led. In mid-2024, it went through a more difficult period. There were some cancellations among biotechs of drug trials because they couldn't get funding to run the trials. And so that led to a period of weak new business adds. Two quarters ago, cancellations returned to normal levels and it had a really big beat on new business growth and so the stock did plus 50% the day after that result. This most recent quarter was a continuation of that trend. So, cancellations at low levels, another big new bookings beat. The stock has run since then. Given that the environment is improving, we're still happy to hold it though.

Chris Conway: So Medpace for you. Nick, bring us home. What's one that did well for you during the season?

Aritzia (TSE: ATZ)

Nick Markiewicz: So we own a small Canadian apparel retailer called Aritzia. They make women's clothes for formal wear, work wear. That company shot the lights out; so they beat earnings expectations by 40%. They doubled EBITDA year-on-year. What was most pleasing was they did a 22% comp, so same store sales of 22%. I think it was probably the best performing US apparel business that quarter. Most pleasingly for us, they actually maintained their EBITDA margin guide for the year and that was a bit of a surprise given everyone thought there'd be some impact from tariffs. So, a really nice set of numbers. We are really happy to keep holding it here for a few reasons; one, we think that a nice set of numbers they just delivered is probably likely to continue. They're early in their US store rollout and when you get a good concept that's tried and tested in their home market of Canada and you roll that out across new states, that's generally a pretty good recipe for further growth. They just launched a new app, which we think is going to help aid that growth as well. Their new app was the number one most downloaded e-commerce app on the App Store in the week after it's release, and it was actually the third most downloaded app in total on the App Store. So I think that bodes quite well. And then I would say that they've been doing very well in a sluggish consumer market, which we mentioned before. So if there is an improvement in the consumer, tariffs come off, we think that's further upside as well.

Chris Conway: There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, Aritzia and Medpace. Thanks to the gents for participating in this episode. If you enjoyed it, make sure to give it a like and don't forget to follow our YouTube channel. We're adding lots of great content every single week.