Now I have sufficient information to write a comprehensive earnings preview.# Pinnacle West Capital (PNW) — Q2 2026 Earnings Preview Report date: August 4, 2026 (before market open) | Call: 12:00 PM ET
Pinnacle West reports second-quarter 2026 results tomorrow morning, followed by a call at noon ET. The setup is constructive: the company beat wildly in Q1 (helped by the hottest winter/spring on record in the Phoenix area), Arizona's heat has stayed extreme into summer, and the long-running 2025 rate case has moved into its final, most-watched phase. Wall Street's tone into the print is "cautiously constructive" — a Moderate Buy consensus, but a stock that has run hard in 2026 and pulled back from recent highs.
| Consensus EPS (Zacks) | ~$1.49, down ~5.7% y/y from $1.58 |
| Consensus revenue | ~$1.40B, up ~3.1% y/y |
| Consensus electric sales | ~9,722 GWh, up ~3.1% y/y |
| FY2026 guidance (company) | $4.55–$4.75 diluted EPS, weather-normalized (reaffirmed each quarter) |
| Stock, YTD 2026 through 8/3 | ~+14% (from $88.14 to $100.84), off recent highs near $109 |
| Analyst sentiment | Moderate Buy (~4 Strong Buy / 14 Hold of 18 analysts); mean price target roughly $105 |
Q1 2026 was a blowout relative to a year-ago loss. Pinnacle West reported first-quarter 2026 net income of $32.9 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, versus a net loss of $4.6 million (a $0.04 loss per share) in Q1 2025. Management attributed the swing largely to higher transmission revenue, favorable weather, higher sales/usage and lower O&M. On the call, CFO Andrew Cooper quantified the drivers: transmission contributed $0.16 of benefit, and weather — driven by the hottest March on record with nine days at or above 100°F — added $0.13. Customer growth ran at 2.2% and weather-normalized sales growth was a striking 9.4% (7.4% excluding a prior-year one-time adjustment), with C&I growth of 14.6%, well above the top of the 4%–6% full-year sales-growth guidance band. Management reaffirmed full-year guidance of $4.55–$4.75 per share and kept its 5%–7% long-term sales-growth outlook through 2030 intact.
Weather is the single largest quarter-to-quarter driver of PNW's earnings (management estimates typical weather variance can move annual net income by up to $30 million, and recent extreme-weather years have exceeded that). Last year's Q2 was actually a down quarter — PNW reported $192.6 million of net income, or $1.58 per diluted share, versus $203.8 million ($1.76/share) in Q2 2024, as milder weather (15.4% fewer cooling degree-days) offset otherwise-strong customer/sales growth of 2.4%/5.2%.
This year's comp looks very different. Phoenix experienced its hottest meteorological spring on record (average temperature 80.2°F) heading into June, an early-May heat wave that nearly tied a 92-year-old record, and a major heat wave/Extreme Heat Warning in place through late July with highs of 110–116°F — potentially "the hottest temperatures so far in 2026." If that heat translated into cooling demand the way it did in Q1, it should be a tailwind versus both the Zacks consensus and last year's print, though it's also a tougher comp than an average year given how hot 2025 already was.
Zacks' consensus pegs Q2 EPS at $1.49 (down 5.7% y/y) on revenue of $1.40 billion (+3.1%) and total electric sales of 9,722 GWh (+3.1%), with the earnings model built around continued C&I/data-center-driven load growth and lower core O&M, partially offset by higher D&A and financing costs. Notably, PNW's Earnings ESP was reported at +0.95% with a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) — a combination that historically points toward an earnings beat, and the company has topped or matched estimates in three of the last four quarters (Q1 2026 was reportedly a ~1000% "surprise" given how low the loss-quarter estimate was). Full-year 2026 consensus has generally clustered in the $4.70–$4.98 range, implying a mid-single-digit percentage decline from 2025's $5.05 actual diluted EPS — with a sharper snap-back (mid-teens percentage growth) modeled for 2027 as rate-case relief and load growth flow through.
For context, full-year 2025 net income was $616.5 million, or $5.05 per diluted share, versus $608.8 million ($5.24/share) in 2024 — a “beat the estimates but still down y/y” story driven by weather and financing-cost headwinds. Critically, PNW's earnings are extremely seasonally lopsided toward Q3 (peak summer): Q1 2025 was a loss, Q2 2025 contributed $1.58, Q4 2025 added just $0.13 — implying Q3 2025 alone drove roughly $3.35–$3.40 of the year's EPS. In other words, Q2 is a meaningful data point on trend, but the real swing quarter for the full-year outcome is Q3 (reported in November), which the Street currently models around $3.04, down ~10% y/y off a very tough comp (2025's summer was the third-hottest on record).
The 2025 APS rate case (Docket E-01345A-25-0105) is arguably the most important overhang/catalyst on the stock, more so than any single quarter's weather. Key facts:
Expect the call to spend significant time on: (1) any early signals on ROE/FRAM given how contentious the FRAM mechanics were in rebuttal/surrebuttal testimony, (2) whether management still targets closing the ~200bps gap between authorized and earned ROE by 2029, and (3) messaging that a constructive, "settlement-friendly" ACC environment (per the December 2024 Formula Rate Policy Statement and the 2022 Rate Case settlement precedent) supports a reasonable outcome.
The long-term bull case is unchanged and probably gets reiterated: APS has ~4.5 GW of committed extra-high-load-factor (XHLF) load (data centers, semiconductor fabs, manufacturing) against system peak of 8.6 GW, with nearly 20 GW of uncommitted demand still in the interconnection queue. TSMC's Arizona expansion continues to anchor this story — the company highlighted supply-chain players (United Integrated Services, Sunlit Chemicals, Mornstair) buying land nearby, with TSMC's second fab targeting 3nm volume production in H2 2027 and a third/fourth fab plus a packaging facility under construction. Management raised long-term weather-normalized sales growth guidance to 5%–7% through 2030 (from 4%–6%), with 2026 guidance at 4%–6%; Q1's 9.4% print (7.4% adjusted) is running well ahead of that band.
Two near-term catalysts to watch: (1) APS's next Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) is due to be filed August 3, 2026 — literally the day before this earnings call — and should refresh long-term load and resource-need assumptions; and (2) the subscription-model bilateral contracts with large-load customers (targeted at up to ~1.2 GW initially) remain in negotiation, with management targeting commission filings before year-end 2026.
PNW shares have had a strong 2026, rising from $88.14 on Jan 2 to a 2026 closing high near $109.37 (July 2), before pulling back roughly 8% to $100.84 by Aug 3 amid a broader July/early-August pullback. Options markets and sell-side commentary describe the current analyst stance as a "Moderate Buy" (roughly 4 Strong Buy / 14 Hold among 18 covering analysts), with mean price targets clustering in the $97–$105 range recently — meaning the stock has, at times over the summer, traded near or above where the Street sees fair value, leaving less room for multiple expansion absent a positive fundamental or regulatory surprise.