We feature the best research output of our analyst team in the Zacks Research Daily. In today’s write-up, we are featuring analyst reports on 16 major stocks, including reports on Facebook (FB), JPMorgan (JPM) and DuPont (DD). These stock research reports have been hand-picked from the 70 or so reports published by our analyst team today. You can see all of today’s research reports here >>
In addition to these stock research reports, we are also giving you a real-time scorecard of the ongoing Q4 earnings season. We take pride in closely monitoring each and every earnings report and presenting our analysis of emerging trends in the weekly Earnings Trends and Earnings Preview reports. Our latest Earnings Preview report is: 4 Things to Know About the Q4 Earnings Season
Q4 Earnings Scorecard (as of Friday, February 3rd)
We now have Q4 results from 275 S&P 500 members, or 55% of the index’s total membership. With 84 index members on deck to report results next week, we will have seen Q4 results from 72% of the index’s total membership by the end of next week.
Total earnings for the 275 index members that have reported results already are up +6.9% on +4.3% higher revenues, with 67.8% beating EPS estimates and 54.3% beating revenue estimates.
This is better earnings and revenue growth performance than we have seen from this group of 275 S&P 500 members in other recent periods, even after adjusting for the strong growth from the Finance sector (earnings growth would be +5.4% excluding the Finance sector on +4.2% higher revenues). The proportion of companies beating EPS and revenue estimates, however, is tracking below other recent periods. Only 39.5% of the index members are able to beat both EPS and revenue estimates, which compares to 50.9% in the preceding quarter for the same sample of 275 S&P 500 members.
Looking at Q4 as a whole, combining the actual results from the 275 index members with estimates from the still-to-come 225 companies, total earnings are expected to be up +6.8% from the same period last year on +3.8% higher revenues. This is the best earnings and revenue growth pace in two years. Importantly, the strong Q4 growth is not a function of easy comparisons, but rather a result of actual gains. The fact is total earnings for the S&P 500 index are on track to reach an all-time quarterly record, surpassing the level achieved in 2014 Q4.
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