Q3 Earnings Season: An Inflection Point

 | Nov 04, 2016 05:07AM ET

The bulk of the Q3 earnings season is now behind us, with results from only 15% of the S&P 500 members still awaited. The Retail sector is the only one at this stage that has a sizable number of reports still to come, particularly from the traditional brick-and-mortar operators like Macy’s (JWN ) that will report this week. In total, we have almost 650 companies reporting Q3 results, including 31 S&P 500 members.

The picture emerging from the Q3 earnings season is one of overall improvement, particularly on the growth front. Earnings growth for the quarter is on track to be in positive territory, the first positive growth for the S&P 500 index after 5 quarters of back-to-back declines. The +3% earnings growth in Q3 (combining the actual results from the 423 index members that have reported already with estimates for the still-to-come 77 companies) is nevertheless a notable improvement over what we saw in the preceding 5 quarters, as the chart below shows.