Key Takeaways for American Express Stock as of July 2026
- American Express’ revenue grew 10%, and EPS hit $4.53, up 11% year over year, a strong setup for AXP stock heading into the back half of 2026.
- With billings running ahead of plan, management raised full-year revenue growth guidance to 10% while holding EPS guidance at $17.30 to $17.90, opting to reinvest the upside instead of buying back more stock.
- Falling delinquencies and flat write-offs pulled Q2 provision expense down to $1.1 billion, aided by a $191 million reserve release, even as total spending accelerated to 9%.
- CEO Steve Squeri put the tradeoff plainly on the call: “We have a choice. We can either drop the overperformance to the bottom line and buy back more shares or we can invest to grow the business further.”
AXP Stock Posts a Fourth Straight Double-Digit Quarter as Credit Keeps Improving
American Express (AXP) posted its fourth straight quarter of double-digit revenue growth on the July 24, 2026 call, with second-quarter revenue up 10% year over year and adjusted EPS of $4.53, up 11%. Pretax income jumped 15%, while net income rose a slower 8%, a gap CFO Christophe Le Caillec attributed to prior-year tax discretes rather than any softening in the core business.
Spend growth stepped up to 9.4% FX adjusted, the fastest pace in three years, with U.S. consumer spending up 11%, the highest level since Q1 2018 outside pandemic-distorted quarters. Retail spending rose 13%, restaurant spending climbed 10%, and travel bookings jumped 22%. The Platinum refresh from last September is still doing the heavy lifting: the card is now American Express’s fastest-growing product in U.S. consumer, and Le Caillec said the refresh alone drove a 600 basis point acceleration across the entire Platinum portfolio.
That acceleration came without any give-back on credit. The Q2 write-off rate held flat against Q1 while the delinquency rate declined, and a $191 million reserve release, mostly reflecting further credit strengthening, cut provision expense to $1.1 billion. Delinquency rates have sat between 1.2% and 1.3% for more than three years, below 2019 levels, and the Federal Reserve’s CCAR stress test results showed American Express with the lowest projected credit card loss rate of any bank tested.
Six months into the year, revenue is up 11% and EPS 14%, putting American Express on pace for a fourth consecutive year of mid-teens EPS growth. That combination of faster spend and cleaner credit gave management room to raise guidance without touching the bottom line: full-year revenue growth guidance moved up to 10%, while EPS guidance held at $17.30 to $17.90. CEO Steve Squeri explained the tradeoff directly on the Q2 earnings call: “We have a choice. We can either drop the overperformance to the bottom line and buy back more shares or we can invest to grow the business further through the wide range of attractive growth opportunities we have across our business.”
Not every line is accelerating. Net card fee growth, at 15.4% in Q2, still needs to climb into the high teens by Q4 to hit management’s target, and the sale of two small-business co-brand portfolios will start shaving roughly 1 percentage point off spend growth and 2.5 points off net interest income once the transfers complete in Q3. Le Caillec called the earnings impact of those sales negligible, but the discontinuity will show up in the growth-rate optics through year end.
TIKR Values AXP Stock at $508, Pricing In Sustained Premium Growth
TIKR’s mid-case model values American Express stock at $508 by December 2030, implying 49% total return from the current price of $341, or 9% annualized over 4.4 years.
That annualized pace lands below the double-digit revenue growth and 14% first-half EPS growth American Express just delivered, positioning AXP stock’s return profile as more conservative than the current run rate would suggest.
The target looks reachable because growth and credit quality are reinforcing each other this cycle: delinquencies remain below 2019 levels even as U.S. consumer spend runs at its fastest pace since 2018, and management is funding the next leg of that flywheel through the TheFork acquisition and the international Platinum refresh cycle.
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
