After the first major week of the 1Q earnings season, 83 firms in the S&P 500 have reported results (26% of market cap). Financials represent one quarter of reported firms. Bottom-up consensus 1Q 2014 EPS is tracking at $26.62, just 3% growth versus 2013 but 1.4% above expectations at the start of reporting season. Next week is the largest earnings week of the 1Q 2014 season: 159 firms representing 33% of S&P 500 market cap will report including AAPL, MSFT, PG, VZ, T, QCOM, and CMCSA. See pages 4-7 for next week’s earnings calendar. 39% of companies reporting have beaten earnings estimates
Results this early in the season are skewed towards early reports (25% of companies reported before Alcoa) and Financials/Banks (27% of firms). While the percentage of beats is below the 10-year historical average of 47%, early results are more likely to stray from the long-term average. The percentage of positive surprises should stabilize next week as the number of reported companies triples to 242 from 83.
Positive surprises are tracking in line with early results from 2013 After 13 days of reports, 40% of companies reported positive surprises during the 2013 earnings seasons, but the percentage increased by the end of the season. Overall, 44% of firms beat earnings, still below the 47% long-term average.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
