As many as ninety-one percent of representatives of the broad American stock market index S&P500 have announced their financial results for the last quarter. So, now we can basically summarize the quarter.
In terms of earnings per share, 78 percent of companies performed better than forecast (slightly above the average of the past five years).
However, the results beat forecasts by an average of just 3.5 percent, below the five-year average of 8.6 percent. Annual profit growth averaged 10.8 percent and was the highest since the fourth quarter of 2021.
On the earnings side, 59 percent of the S&P 500 generated better-than-expected earnings, which was lower than the five-year average of 69 percent. Earnings beat estimates by an average of 0.5 percent, which is also below the five-year average of 2 percent (the lowest percentage of positive surprises since the fourth quarter of 2019).
In turn, the dynamics of revenue growth is 5.2 percent per year, which is the best result since the fourth quarter of 2022.
