Earnings Deluge

We’re already a couple of weeks into earnings season, but if you think it’s been busy so far, you haven’t seen anything yet. Using our Earnings Report Calendar, we screened the S&P 500 for companies scheduled to report earnings by date. With just over 1% of companies in the S&P 500 scheduled to report earnings today, it’s been a quiet start to the week. That slow pace won’t last long, though, as close to 6% of companies are scheduled to report earnings on Tuesday, and then even more companies on the calendar for Wednesday and Thursday. In fact, with 7.2% of companies in the S&P 500 scheduled to report on Wednesday, it is tied with next Thursday for the busiest day of the entire earnings season.

Not only are this Wednesday and Thursday notable for the number of companies reporting earnings, but many of the S&P 500’s largest companies are also reporting those days as well.On Wednesday, both Microsoft (MSFT) and Facebook (FB) – three of the five largest companies in the S&P 500- report earnings after the close, and then on Thursday after the close we’ll hear results from Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Amazon.com (AMZN) – the 1st, 2nd, and 4th largest companies in the index based on market cap.In total, on Wednesday we’ll hear quarterly results from companies representing 10.7% of the S&P 500’s market cap, and then on Thursday, we’ll hear from companies comprising 16% of the index’s market cap.Needless to say, the results we hear on those two days will go a long way in deciding the direction that equities take this week. Rest up!