S&P 500 Earnings

Keep Your Seatbelt on and Get a Neck Brace

May 5, 2023 2 min read paid

The S&P 500 rallied along with regional bank stocks today. It found support yesterday at its 50-day moving average. Shares of Western Alliance, Comerica, and Zions Bancorp were upgraded to the equivalent of a buy recommendation by analysts at JP Morgan. They said "with too many on one side of the boat, we move to the middle." Also giving the market a lift: Apple's

Ed Yardeni

An Upbeat Earnings Indicator

Apr 24, 2023 1 min read paid

Why has the stock market been holding up so well so far this year despite lots of pessimism about an impending recession? One possible explanation is that industry analysts are turning more optimistic on the earnings prospects of the companies they follow. We have been tracking the percent of S&P 500 companies with positive three-month percent changes in analysts' consensus forward earnings (chart). (FYI: “Forward” earnings is

Ed Yardeni

Market Call

Apr 18, 2023 2 min read

We remain convinced that the S&P 500 bottomed on October 12, 2022. The S&P 500 is up 16.2% since then (table below). Every sector of the S&P 500 is up since then. Even the Financials sector is up 10.3% despite the recent banking crisis. We are still expecting to see the S&P 500 rise to 4600 by the end of

Ed Yardeni

Industry Analysts Trimming Earnings

Jan 19, 2023 1 min read

Industry analysts continue to trim their estimates for S&P 500 earnings for each of this year's four quarters (chart). They may continue to do so if company managements provide cautious earnings guidance during the current earnings reporting season. Nevertheless, as of the January 12 week, the analysts still expected that earnings will increase 4.0% this year compared to last year from $219.46 per share

Ed Yardeni

S&P 500 Consensus Forecasts Relatively Steady Recently

Dec 19, 2022 1 min read paid

We now have analysts' consensus estimates for the operating earnings per share of the S&P 500 through the December 15 week. They lowered their forecast for Q4-2022, now showing a gain of only 0.4% y/y. The actual results will be released by the companies during the upcoming earnings reporting season in January and February. The analysts' estimates for the four quarters of next year

Ed Yardeni

Industry Analysts Cutting S&P 500 Earnings

Nov 9, 2022 3 min read paid Featured

The following is an excerpt from our November 9, 2022 Morning Briefing. Industry analysts have yet to get the recession memo. They are still estimating that S&P 500 revenues are growing. However, they’ve been reading the memo about the squeeze on profit margins from rising costs. As a result, many of them have been reducing their estimates for the profit margins of the S&P 500

Ed Yardeni

S&P 500 Earnings Estimates Are Falling

Nov 4, 2022 1 min read

Industry analysts who cover the S&P 500 companies are responding to the current earnings reporting season for Q3-2022 by continuing to cut their earnings estimates for Q4-2022 and all four quarters of next year (charts below). They've been doing so through the last week of October when several of the MegaCap-8 reported disappointing earnings. The 344 of the S&P 500 companies that have reported

Ed Yardeni

S&P 500 Fizzles

Oct 14, 2022 1 min read

Thursday's impressive reversal-day rally fizzled today. The big banks reported their Q3 earnings results today. On balance, they were better than expected. However, yesterday's hotter-than-expected CPI weighed on the bond market, even though today's retail sales was relatively weak. Our Blue Angels framework (chart below) shows that S&P 500 forward earnings have been relatively flat since it peaked in late June. The

Ed Yardeni

S&P 500 Analysts Shaving Their Profit Margin Estimates

Sep 8, 2022 1 min read

Previously, we observed that industry analysts covering the S&P 500 (as well as the S&P 400 and S&P 600) shaved their 2022 and 2023 during the Q2 earnings reporting season that started in July and ended in August. That may be it for now until they get another round of guidance from company managements for Q3 starting in October. Analysts remain mostly bullish on

Ed Yardeni

S&P 500 Earnings Stalling

Aug 24, 2022 1 min read paid

The forward earnings* of the S&P 500 peaked at a record high in late June, just before the start of Q2's earnings reporting season. Since then industry analysts have been shaving their 2022 and 2023 earnings estimates. As a result, forward earnings has stalled. Let's drill down to the 11 sectors of the S&P 500 (chart below):

Ed Yardeni

Industry Analysts Shaving S&P 500 Earnings Estimates

Jul 25, 2022 1 min read

The industry analysts who cover the S&P 500 companies are starting to lower their earnings estimates for 2022 and 2023. Consider the following: (1) They haven't cut their estimates by much, so far, but enough to flatten S&P 500 forward earnings after it rose to a record high four weeks ago. (Forward earnings is the time-weighted average of analysts' consensus earnings estimates for

Ed Yardeni

David Bowie and S&P 500 Earnings

Jun 16, 2022 2 min read

Ground control to Major Tom: "Have you heard that the US economy is falling into a recession?" Like David Bowie's astronaut, S&P 500 industry analysts seem to be in outer space. Their earnings estimates are certainly out there still: (1) Our Squiggles analysis (below) shows that through the week of June 9, the S&P 500 consensus revenues estimates for 2022 and 2023

Ed Yardeni

Page 4 of 5