FxWirePro: S&P 500 earnings update

So far (11th August) 91 percent of the companies in S&P 500 have reported their earnings. Let’s take a look at the key takeaways,

• So far, 74 percent of the companies that reported actual results, reported better than expected earnings which are by an average 5.7 percent higher than the estimates. Only 18 percent of the companies reported worse than estimated earnings. Average earnings growth rate so far is 12 percent. All sectors have reported earnings growth with energy sector leading the way, with 538.7 percent increase.
• 68 percent of the companies reported higher sales than estimated. Rest 32 percent reported lower than expected sales. Sales grew by 5.1 percent on an average.
• Best performing sector has been information technology, where 88 percent of the companies reported better than expected earnings, followed by Healthcare (81 percent), Real Estate (75 percent), Consumer Staples (73 percent), Industrials (72 percent), Utilities (71 percent), Financials (71 percent), and Materials (65 percent).
• The worst performers have been Telecom and the Energy sector, where only 50 percent and 63 percent of the companies have beaten EPS estimates. However, earnings growth was biggest for the energy sector due to rise in oil price.
• In terms of sales, best performing sector has been Telecom, where all companies have beaten their sales estimates, followed by Materials (81 percent), and Information technology (80 percent).
• The worst performer was Utilities where only 54 percent of the companies have beaten sales estimates.
• On an aggregate, companies beat revenue estimates by 1.1 percent. The Financials (+1.6%) and Energy (+4.3%) sectors are reporting the largest upside aggregate differences between actual sales and estimated sales, while the Real Estate (-0.1%) sector is reporting the largest downside aggregate difference between actual sales and estimated sales.

Better than expected earnings have pushed all three, S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and NASDAQ to an all-time high. S&P 500 is currently trading at 2454, while DOW is at 21858, and NASDAQ at 6257.

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