Corporate Profit Margins Hit All-Time High as Small Doritos Bags Retail at $5.99

“soup lines
free loaves of bread
5lb blocks of cheese
bags of groceries
social security
has run out on you and me
we do whatever we can
gotta duck when the shit hits the fan”
-Circle Jerks, ‘When the Shit Hits the Fan’

Via FactSet Insight (emphasis added):

Given concerns in the market about tariffs and higher costs, what is the S&P 500 reporting for a net profit margin for Q4?

The blended net profit margin for the S&P 500 for Q4 2025 is 13.2%. If 13.2% is the actual net profit margin for the quarter, it will mark the highest net profit margin reported by the index since FactSet began tracking this metric in 2009. The current record (going back to 2009) is 13.1%, which occurred in the previous quarter.

At the sector level, four sectors are reporting a year-over-year increase in their net profit margins in Q4 2025 compared to Q4 2024, led by the Information Technology (29.0% vs. 26.8%) and Industrials (12.5% vs. 10.7%) sectors. On the other hand, six sectors are reporting a year-over-year decrease in their net profit margins in Q4 2025 compared to Q4 2024, led by the Real Estate (33.5% vs. 35.1%) sector. One sector (Energy) is reporting no change in net profit margin (7.8%) in Q4 2025 compared to Q4 2024.

Five sectors are reporting net profit margins in Q4 2025 that are above their 5-year averages, led by the Information Technology (29.0% vs. 25.0%) and Industrials (12.5% vs. 9.3%) sectors. On the other hand, six sectors are reporting net profit margins in Q4 2025 that are below their 5-year averages, led by the Health Care (6.9% vs. 9.2%) and Real Estate (33.5% vs. 35.8%) sectors.

The key thing here to note is that the record is in the margins — the percentage of whatever cash they’re bringing in after expenses that’s pure profit.

Raw corporate profits are also at record highs, but it’s the margins that really beg questions.

As a non-master economist and non-math surgeon, the margins would seem to indicate that the ever-increasing cost of goods is not actually solely the result of changing market conditions but rather opportunistic, creative price-setting.

Exhibit A: $3.29 for a Hershey’s bar, $10,99 for a jug of Tropicana diabetes juice, and $5.99 for a tiny bag of Doritos

The potential yet sadly unlikely upside, of course, could be that the economic pain gets, at some point, so intense that the peasants give up their corporate slop and some much-needed refurbishing of the food supply ensues — but let’s not put too much faith in their better judgment.

-----------------------------------------

[If you appreciate Armageddon Prose, please consider a $5/month or $50/year Substack subscription or a one-time digital “coffee” donation. For alternative means of patronage, email benbartee@protonmail.com.]

------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, with corporate profits as a share of national income at an all-time high at 16.2%, while corporate profits are surely a welcome boon for anyone holding stocks, the benefits have strangely not trickled down onto the middle-class — you know, the engine, once the envy of the world, that once drove global American economic and cultural dominance and that politicians used to make a convincing effort to look out for.

Another noteworthy metric: while corporate profits climb year after year, at ever-increasing clips, the median household income essentially flatlined from 2023 to 2024, the last period fully accounted for. When the 2024 to 2025 numbers drop, there’s no reason to expect any real difference.

Meanwhile, though, blissfully unencumbered by fiscal reality and with an insatiable appetite for government-financed slop, the urban EBT serfs are weathering the storm just fine.

VIDEO: Morbidly obese urban EBT serf proudly displays the thousand+ dollars’ worth of heinous slop she procured with public money

Benjamin Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile (now available in paperback), is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

Follow AP on X.

Subscribe (for free) to Armageddon Prose and its dystopian sister, Armageddon Safari.

Support AP’s independent journalism with a one-off, hassle-free “digital coffee” tip or Patreon.

Bitcoin public address: bc1qvq4hgnx3eu09e0m2kk5uanxnm8ljfmpefwhawv