August ended with a late summer rally sending stock market indexes like the S&P 500 (SP500) heading to its all time high, a much needed recovery from the lows earlier this month sparked by recessionary fears.

The rally reflects the stock market’s positive reception of better-than- expected U.S. economic data as inflation no longer seems to be a primary concern for investors.

The U.S. Q2 GDP growth was revised up to a solid 3% rate on Thursday reflecting an upward adjustment to consumer spending. As a result fears that the rate of economic growth was deteriorating are fading among investors helping stocks rapidly recover their losses.

The last week of August ended on a positive note for S&P 500 companies that reported earnings this week as 11 out of 15 of them beat profit estimates, while 8 companies reported revenue beat.

In terms of annual comparison, 5 companies reported lower EPS and 3 companies reported lower revenue than the last year.

The companies that beat profit estimates were largely dominated by the IT sector with software companies such as Salesforce (CRM), Autodesk (ADSK) and AI behemoth Nvidia (NVDA).

Nvidia (NVDA) reported fiscal second-quarter results and guidance that topped expectations. Looking to the third-quarter of fiscal 2025, Nvidia expects to generate $32.5B in revenue, plus or minus 2%. Analysts were forecasting $31.71B in revenue for the Jensen Huang-led company.

A number of Wall Street firms raised their price targets on Nvidia (NVDA) after the results, including Morgan Stanley, Raymond James and Bernstein. Jensen Huang said in the earnings conference call, “AI GPU demand is way outstripping supply for Nvidia at this juncture,” allaying fears for people who are skeptical about the AI-hype.

For the period ending July 31, Salesforce (CRM) earned an adjusted $2.56 per share as revenue rose 8.4% year-over-year to come in at $9.33B as the company made major strides in monetizing artificial intelligence across its customer base.

Looking to the third-quarter, Salesforce (CRM) expects to earn between $2.42 and $2.44 per share on an adjusted basis, above the $2.42 analysts were expecting.

Cybersecurity company Crowdstrike (CRWD), despite its global outage last month, reported second-quarter results that topped expectations. However the company had to slightly tweak its full-year guidance.

It now sees full-year adjusted earnings between $3.61 and $3.65 per share, down from a prior outlook of $3.93 to $4.03 per share.

Among consumer stocks, companies such as Best Buy (BBY), Lululemon (LULU), and Campbell Soup (CPB) beat profit expectations for the quarter.

Best Buy (BBY) delivered strong results in the domestic tablet and computing categories, which together posted comparable sales growth of 6% versus last year. EPS was reported at $1.34 vs. $1.16 consensus and $1.25 a year ago.

Lululemon (LULU) earned a profit of $3.15 per share, up from $2.68 a year ago, beating estimates by $0.23.

However the company’s guidance reflected a more cautious consumer landscape with Q3 earnings forecasted to be between $2.68 to $2.73 on sales of $2.34B to $2.365B. This compares to the consensus estimate of $2.73 EPS on $2.41B in sales.

While most companies this week beat profit expectations, misses from companies such as Dollar General (DG), Ulta Beauty (ULTA), Brown Forman (BF.B), and HP (HPQ) painted a bleak picture of the economy.

Ulta Beauty (ULTA) trimmed its forecast for the full-year and missed on both revenue and profit consensus for the second quarter due to a decline in comparable store sales.

For the quarter, HP (HPQ) reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.83, which was less than the consensus estimate of $0.86. It also lowered its fiscal full year earnings per share guidance to a range from $3.35 to $3.45, versus its prior forecast of $3.30 to $3.60.

For the upcoming week, a number of S&P 500 companies are scheduled to report results, with the likes of Hormel Foods (HRL), Hewlett Packard (HPE), Dollar Tree (DLTR), and Copart (CPRT) to report on Wednesday and Broadcom (AVGO) expected to report on Thursday.