Zacks Investment Research | Jan 23, 2020 04:30AM ET
Note: The following is an excerpt from this week’s
Here are the key points:
Q4 Earnings Season Scorecard (as of January 23rd, 2020)
We now have Q4 results from 75 S&P 500 members that combined account for 19.4% of the index’s total market capitalization. Total earnings for these 75 index members are down -1.3% from the same period last year on +3.2% higher revenues, with 69.3% beating EPS estimates and 72.0% beating revenue estimates.
The two sets of comparison charts below put the results thus far in a historical context, first the growth rates for these 75 index members.
And then the proportion of these companies beating estimates.
The results thus far are still dominated by the Finance sector, with the big banks providing a mixed picture at best. JPMorgan (JPM) came out with stellar numbers, beating estimates and achieving year-over-year growth rates of +20.6% and +8.5% in earnings and revenues, respectively. But Wells Fargo (WFC) had another sub-par showing and even the Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and Goldman Sachs (GS) reports were at best ok.
Expectations for the Quarter
The earnings growth trend established in the first three quarters of the year is not expected to change in the last quarter of the year, with tough comparisons to the year-earlier period weighing on growth.
For Q4, total earnings for the S&P 500 index are currently expected to be down -3.0% on +3.7% higher revenues, with 9 of the 16 Zacks sectors expected to have lower earnings relative to the year-earlier period.
The chart below of quarterly year-over-year earnings growth for the S&P 500 index shows estimates for Q4 and the following 4 quarters and actual results for the preceding 4 quarters.
As you can see above, earnings growth was essentially flat in the first two quarters of the year, fell -1.7% in Q3, and is expected to be down -3.0% in Q4. This is expected to change as we turn the page on 2019 given the tough comparisons to tax-boosted earnings in 2018, with growth resuming in 2020 Q1, as the above chart shows.
The chart below puts earnings and revenue growth expectations for full-year 2019 in the context of where growth has been in recent years and what is expected in the next two years.
The market appears to have accepted the deceleration in growth this year in the hope that growth resumes from next year onwards.
The key issue will be if expectations for next year remain stable or start coming down as we move through the remainder of the year. Analysts have not made any significant revisions to their estimates in response to the ongoing trade dispute, likely in the hope that the issue will eventually get resolved. This, coupled with the ongoing economic weakness in Europe, China and elsewhere likely represent downside risks to the growth outlook.
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