New York, Feb 26, 2026, 18:07 (EST) — After-hours
- INTU dropped over 5% in after-hours trading following its third-quarter profit outlook.
- Shares finished the session up roughly 3.5% before the report landed
- Tax-season spending, new AI tie-ups, and the pace of early filings have investors’ attention right now.
Intuit Inc shares dropped 5.3% to $373.48 in after-hours trade Thursday following its latest quarterly update and new guidance. Earlier, the TurboTax parent had closed the session 3.46% higher at $394.42.
This period is crucial for Intuit—tax season is when the company’s consumer business flexes its real muscle. How customers spend shows up quickly, and the results often shape the growth narrative for the rest of the year.
Intuit is looking for adjusted EPS in the $12.45 to $12.51 range this fiscal third quarter, projecting revenue growth near 10%. CFO Sandeep Aujla told Reuters profits will miss Wall Street’s target, pointing to heavier spending on marketing and customer support as Intuit pushes for more users in assisted tax services and QuickBooks—where it goes up against H&R Block and Oracle’s NetSuite. Aujla highlighted multi-year contracts with OpenAI and Anthropic, noting over 3 million clients now interact with Intuit’s AI agents. “We’re paying OpenAI and Anthropic for the capabilities. We’re not paying them revenue share,” he said. Reuters
Intuit’s second-quarter numbers are in: revenue climbed 17% to $4.651 billion for the period ended Jan. 31. Non-GAAP diluted EPS came in at $4.15. Global Business Solutions revenue jumped 18%, landing at $3.2 billion, while Consumer revenue hit $1.5 billion, up 15%. TurboTax pulled in $581 million, a 12% gain. The company stuck with its full-year outlook, bumped its quarterly dividend by 15% to $1.20 per share, and returned $961 million through buybacks. CEO Sasan Goodarzi described Intuit as “defining a new category at the intersection of AI and human intelligence.” Intuit Inc.
Intuit, in its latest quarterly report, pointed to seasonality as the main driver of the swings. Most of TurboTax and ProTax’s revenue comes in between November and April, leading to bigger net revenue numbers for the quarters ending Jan. 31 and April 30.
Some analysts say Intuit’s core business leaves it with spending flexibility. “We continue to view Intuit as a mission-critical platform for small businesses,” wrote William Blair’s Arjun Bhatia, highlighting the company’s investments in AI and its deals with large language model providers. Investing.com
Heading into Friday, traders are eyeing whether the selling pressure pauses or keeps building. Early tax-season demand remains front and center, with attention on assisted tax product conversions and how QuickBooks is faring as spending ticks up.
Still, the risk is clear: if Intuit’s spending on marketing and support ramps up, but customer numbers don’t follow, that extra outlay could sting. Rivals in assisted tax and mid-market finance aren’t sitting idle either. And lately, investors haven’t cut much slack for software companies needing to step up spending just to keep growth on track.
April 15 marks the federal filing deadline, with the IRS kicking off the 2026 tax season back on Jan. 26. Eyes are on how Intuit’s suite of tax services is performing heading into the crunch, and what the company reports about customer activity as the deadline looms.
