SPXT - S&P 500 Earnings: Can Tech Sector Earnings Growth Stay Positive In 2023?
Summary
- While the sell-side focuses on sector “market cap weight” in the benchmark, earnings weight matters.
- Tech sector earnings growth expectation for 2023 is just barely positive.
- However, the rate of decline in expected growth in the year is still manageable.
Accounting for 27% of the S&P 500’s market cap, the technology sector is a big deal in terms of both market cap weight and earnings weight in the benchmark. TJ Dhillon, a Refinitiv support rep, sent me a quick note detailing that Apple’s ( AAPL ) earnings weight in the S&P 500 is 6.5% (as of early ’23), versus its market cap weight as of 2/24/23 of 6.64%. While the sell-side focuses on “market cap weight” all the time, earnings weight matters.
Readers can click on the above “expected” sector earnings within the S&P 500 and - looking at the highlighted lines - 2022 and 2023 expected, tech sector earnings growth for 2023 is just barely positive.
If 27% of the S&P 500’s market cap is expecting flat-to-negative earnings growth in 2023, that’s not good.
The one small positive to this is that the rate of decline in expected growth in ’23 is still manageable.
S&P 500 data:
- The forward 4-quarter estimate slid again this week to $221.71 from last week’s $222.36;
- The P/E ratio this week is 17.9x vs. last week’s 18.3x
- The S&P 500 earnings yield is 5.58%. Bespoke noted that the 1-year Treasury yield is 5.05%, so T-bill yields are approximating the S&P 500 earnings yield (kinda).
Not much to tell readers other than it’s been a slow drip lower for S&P 500 earnings starting in the summer of 2022. 2023 expected earnings have seen the biggest negative revisions, which is understandable, since we were in the middle of 2022 and thus already knew the earnings health.
No question, readers have to take earnings on a company-by-company basis.
The only sector that’s showing positive earnings revisions and higher expected 2023 EPS growth is Communication Services, which is Meta ( META ) and Google ( GOOGL , GOOG ), and while Meta’s EPS showed sharply higher EPS revisions for 2023, revenue revisions continue to be slightly negative.
This blog updated Meta estimates this past week, and current consensus is expecting +5% revenue growth for an expected -2% EPS growth in 2023, with an 18x forward multiple. Alphabet is expecting 6% revenue growth and flat EPS growth in 2023 with an 18x multiple.
Alphabet has one more tough quarter of compares with Q1 ’22, then growth starts to slow materially.
Summary / conclusion
The financial sector seemed to get a lot of attention from the mainstream financial media this past week, as financials are expecting - per the IBES data by Refinitiv - the second-best rate of EPS growth this year, second only to consumer discretionary at +22.7% (although that expected growth rate is coming down) and just ahead of communication services at +11.7%.
Having talked about it the last 8 weeks, Q4 ’23 earnings growth is still showing “robustness” at +10.3%, while Q1 and Q2 ’23 are now showing negative growth y.y and Q3 ’23 has seen lower revisions. It’s still too early to make a call on Q4 ’23, but the trend is the trend - pay attention to it.
Tech sector earnings and revenue growth matter. It’s a big chunk of the S&P 500.
Take all this with a healthy grain of salt and considerable pessimism. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All data is sourced from IBES data by Refinitiv. Capital markets change quickly, both positively and negatively. If there is one thing this business is loaded with, that’s - well - opinions, and they can change quickly.
Thanks for reading.
Editor's Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.
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S&P 500 Earnings: Can Tech Sector Earnings Growth Stay Positive In 2023?