After the first week of earnings, analysts have tempered their expectations for profit growth, anticipating a continuation of the profit-declining trend.
The Week That Was: The blended year-over-year earnings of S&P 500 companies are expected to decrease by 0.4%, marking the fourth consecutive decline, according to Factset’s weekly earnings insights report. The decline in earnings is largely due to downward revisions in earnings per share (EPS) estimates for Pfizer, Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY).
Some of the notable disappointments from the past week include Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), Nokia Oyj (NYSE:NOK), Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS), and Alcoa Corp. (NYSE:AA), among others. Additionally, there were negative preannouncements from companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (NYSE:HPE) and SolarEdge Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SEDG).
Factset data indicates that out of the 17% of the S&P 500 companies that have reported so far, 73% have reported positive earnings per share (EPS) surprises, and 66% have reported positive revenue surprises.
The Week Ahead: With earnings from the financial sector tapering, tech companies are expected to take the spotlight this week. Investors will closely monitor earnings from communication services companies such as Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META), Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP), and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), along with software giant Microsoft Corporation (NYSE:MSFT) and e-commerce giant Amazon, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).
Piper Sandler analyst Brent Bracelin anticipates Microsoft to guide to a slight improvement in core growth, driven by ...