FxWirePro: S&P 500 Q1 earnings update

So far, 15 percent of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported their Q1 earnings. Let’s take a look at the key takeaways,

Earnings:

• So far, 78 percent of the companies that reported actual results, reported better than expected earnings. Only 22 percent of the companies reported worse than estimated earnings. Average earnings growth rate so far is -3.9 percent, which is lower than 13.1 percent reported last quarter and 25.7 percent before that. It is the first negative earnings growth since Q2 2016. After the quarter, S&P500 companies had forecasted -4 percent growth. This quarter, 6 sectors have higher growth than the estimate.
• Earnings surprise percentage is at +5.7 percent, which is higher than the 5-year average of +4.8 percent and equal to the 1-year average of +5.7 percent.
• At the sector level, the Information Technology (100 percent), Health Care (100 percent), Communication Services (100), and Materials (100 percent), sectors have the highest percentages of companies reporting earnings above estimates, while the Energy (50 percent) sector has the lowest percentage of companies reporting earnings above estimates.

Sales:

• 53 percent of the companies reported higher sales than estimated, so far. The sales growth rate is at 5 percent, the same as last week and lower than 6 percent reported last quarter.
• At the sector level, the Communication Services (100 percent), Information Technology (86 percent) sector has the highest percentages of companies reporting revenues above estimates, while the Materials (0 percent) sector has the lowest percentage of companies reporting revenues above estimates.

2019 forecast:

• For Q2 2019, analysts are projecting earnings growth of -0.5 percent and revenue growth of 4.4 percent.
• For Q3 2019, analysts are projecting earnings growth of 1.3 percent and revenue growth of 4.4 percent.
• For Q4 2019, analysts are projecting earnings growth of 8.2 percent and revenue growth of 4.7 percent.

The current forward 12-month P/E ratio for the S&P 500 is at 16.8, below the 5-year average of 16.4 but higher than the 10-year average of 14.7

S&P 500 is currently trading at 2900, while DOW is at 26560 and NASDAQ at 8000.