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Are Any Retailers Reporting Earnings Growth for Q1?

Earnings

By John Butters  |  May 5, 2017

The next several weeks will be focus weeks for retail earnings for the S&P 500, as 25 of the 87 remaining companies in the index that have yet to report actual results for the first quarter are retailers. As of today, which retail sub-industries and companies in the S&P 500 have reported or are projected to report the highest earnings growth for the first quarter?

Sub-Industry Trends

Of the 13 retail sub-industries in the S&P 500, just four have reported or are expected to report earnings growth for the first quarter, led by the Internet & Direct Marketing Retail and Home Improvement Retail sub-industries.

The Internet Direct Marketing Retail sub-industry is expected to report the highest earnings growth of all 13 retail sub-industries at 22.4%. However, only two of the five companies in this sub-industry have reported or are expected to report earnings growth for the first quarter: Amazon.com ($1.48 vs. $1.07) and Netflix ($0.40 vs. $0.06).

The Home Improvement Retail sub-industry is projected to report the second highest earnings growth at 9.6%. Both companies in this sub-industry are expected to report earnings growth for the quarter, led by Lowe’s Companies. The mean EPS estimate for Lowe’s Companies is $1.05, compared to year-ago EPS of $0.87. Lowe’s Companies is scheduled to release results on May 24.

At the company level, 18 of the 37 S&P 500 companies in these 13 retail sub-industries are expected to report or have already reported EPS growth for the first quarter, led by Netflix (+567%), Amazon.com (+38%), Ulta Beauty (+24%), and Lowe’s Companies (+21%).

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John Butters

Vice President, Senior Earnings Analyst

Mr. John Butters is Vice President and Senior Earnings Analyst at FactSet. His weekly research report, “Earnings Insight,” provides analysis and commentary on trends in corporate earnings data for the S&P 500 including revisions to estimates, year-over-year growth, performance relative to expectations, and valuations. He is a widely used source for the media and has appeared on CNBC, Fox Business News, and the Business News Network. In addition, he has been cited by numerous print and online publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The New York Times, MarketWatch, and Yahoo! Finance. Mr. Butters has over 15 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to FactSet in January 2011, he worked for more than 10 years at Thomson Reuters (Thomson Financial), most recently as Director of U.S. Earnings Research (2007-2010).

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