Corporate profits hit 13.2% while your groceries cosplay as luxury goods
13.2% — that’s the new all-time high for U.S. corporate net profit margins, which is a fancy way of saying companies found the exact price point where your soul leaves your body but you still tap your card.
FactSet says Q1 2026 earnings were so “impressive” you can practically hear the champagne corks ricocheting off the executive suite. Meanwhile, you’re standing in Target doing mental math like it’s the SATs because deodorant is now in the “splurge” category.
And yes, everyone’s favorite story arc is back: “Inflation is cooling.”
Translation
it cooled for the people who already own three houses and a boating DUI lawyer on retainer.
The Number
30.7% — that’s how much IT earnings jumped, led by NVIDIA, aka the company selling the digital pickaxes for the AI gold rush while everyone else is panning for rent money in a puddle.
Corporate America will tell you these margins reflect “pricing discipline” and “operational efficiency.”
Translation
they raised prices because they could, cut staff because Wall Street claps like a trained seal, and called it innovation.
And if you’re wondering where the “record profits” came from, it wasn’t from inventing teleportation. It came from you paying $9 for a bag of chips that used to be $4 and now has 30% more air for “freshness.”
This is the part where CEOs go on CNBC and act shocked that consumers are “resilient.” Yeah man, because the alternative is not eating.
The Bottom Line
Inflation didn’t die — it just got promoted to CEO and started billing you for the privilege of staying alive.
TLDR
Corporate profit margins hit a record 13.2% and IT earnings jumped 30.7% (hi NVIDIA) while you’re out here financing groceries like it’s a used Honda.
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