3 Surprising Earnings Winners Changing Their Market Narrative

Key Points

• Companies are reporting Q2 earnings, and results have surprised in several areas.
• AI stocks continue to dominate, but companies in other sectors have been punished for missing expectations.
• Beaten-down stocks outside AI like PayPal, SoFi, and Boeing have been slowly crafting comebacks, and their Q2 reports hint at more upside ahead.

Who doesn’t love a comeback story? While the most significant stock gains in 2025 have gone to AI hyperscalers, the market has rallied hard off the April lows, and investors are feeling more optimistic despite trade war headwinds and job market uncertainty.

Today, we’ll look at three downtrodden individual stocks also mounting comeback stories of their own, and discuss why their Q2 earnings reports point to more improvement ahead.

Earnings Season: Separating the Winners and Losers

Another earnings season is well underway, and Q2 has been notable for its surprises on both the upside and downside. NVIDIA Corp. NASDAQ: NVDA actually posted an EPS miss, although the $44 billion in revenue was impressive enough to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of analysts and investors. AI hyperscalers like Meta Platforms Inc. NASDAQ: META also continue to raise the bar with record-shattering revenue, but the market could be bifurcating into AI-haves and AI-have-nots. 

Neil Dutta of Renaissance Macro Research pointed out that AI capex spending (defined as software plus information processing equipment) has added more to U.S. GDP growth so far this year than personal consumption expenditures. If you’re spending on AI and hit your targets, you’ve been rewarded by the market. But if you miss (or even produce a mixed report), you’re getting punished, especially outside the tech sector.

Some large-cap stocks that beat expectations saw their stocks still drop after reporting. Coinbase Global Inc. NASDAQ: COIN handily beat EPS estimates, but revenue growth slowed, and the stock was down nearly 14% the next day.

 Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. NYSE: CMG paired a slight EPS beat with a small revenue miss and was promptly shoved into a locker. The stock fell 13% after the report and another 8% in the week after. Standards are high right now, and even tiny missteps are causing losses.

When expectations are this high, there’s no shame in looking for stocks with lower standards. That doesn’t mean lowering your standards as an investor (we’re still doing due diligence with proper risk analysis), it means looking for undervalued stocks that the market is discounting.

Stocks like the three we’ll mention below are slowly rebuilding trust from the market and changing the story around their companies following their Q2 earnings releases.

3 Stocks Changing the Narrative With Their Q2 Reports

All these companies have spent most of the past few years out of favor with their investors. But the sentiment around them is slowly changing, and each reported impressive Q2 earnings to back up that narrative. If you’re looking for value amidst a market that’s rapidly getting overextended, consider these surprising Q2 winners.

SoFi: Graduating From Meme Stock to Financial Powerhouse

It’s hard to forget the halcyon days of the meme stock era. Stocks like SoFi Technologies Inc. NASDAQ: SOFI gained and lost 50% multiple times in the span of a few months while CEO Chamath Palihapitiya authored some of the cringiest tweets in the history of social media.

You can still get plenty of cringe on Palihapitiya’s Twitter feed today, but the stock is no longer a meme thanks to its surging membership and loan growth. In Q2, SoFi added 850,000 new customers, representing year-over-year (YOY) growth of 34%.

Revenue missed analysts' expectations, but also grew 42% YOY, and the 8 cents EPS number beat the expected 6 cents. Loan originations were also up 64% YOY to a record $8.8 billion, and the company raised FY 2025 guidance to $3.37 billion.

SoFi stock remains a consensus Hold based on ratings from 20 analysts tracked by MarketBeat. However, the company’s Q2 earnings triggered new activity: Mizuho, Morgan Stanley, and Barclays all updated their coverage following the report—signaling growing attention even amid a neutral consensus.

Boeing: The Turnaround Is Finally Underway

Investors have been watching The Boeing Co. NYSE: BA with binoculars for the last few years as the company made mistake after mistake, rendering the stock practically uninvestable. Recent scandals have plagued Boeing, a once-proud beacon of American industrialism, and its stock remains more than 50% below its 2019 all-time high.

However, it's up more than 20% this year and showing signs of a sustained turnaround. In Q2, the company posted an unprofitable quarter (as expected), but it was narrower than a year ago, and the $22.75 billion in revenue represented nearly 35% YOY growth, easily smashing projections. But like most industrial sector stocks, we look to the backlog for clues.

Boeing booked 455 orders in Q2, which boosts its backlog total to over $600 billion with more than 5,900 commercial plane orders on the books. Boeing’s future looks brighter right now than it has in more than five years, and investors are taking notice.

PayPal: Post-Earnings Slump Offers Buying Opportunity

Another beatdown name from a bygone era, PayPal Holdings Inc. NASDAQ: PYPL has been garnering attention for its turnaround story. The stock is still down 20% this year and plunged again following its Q2 earnings release. But this drop is likely unwarranted and could represent a new entry point for investors. PayPal’s July 29 earnings saw EPS and revenue both beat expectations, led by Venmo’s 20% YOY revenue growth.

The company has also demonstrated a shift to allow consumers to more easily interact with merchants by making all five of its participating global wallets (Venmo, PayPal, UPI, Mercado Pago, Tenpay Global) available for paying any PayPal merchant.

Analysts are starting to take notice, too; PYPL shares received several price target boosts following its report, and the consensus target is now $84.57, signaling potential upside of over 25%.