View this email as a web page here.

Largest Cuts to S&P 500 EPS Estimates in Four Years for First Half of 2019

By John Butters, Jan 22, 2019


Over the past three months (October 15 through January 15), analysts lowered earnings estimates for companies in the S&P 500 for the first half of 2019. The Q1 bottom-up EPS estimate (which is an aggregation of the median EPS estimates of all the companies in the index for Q1) dropped by 5.0% (to $39.37 from $41.43) during this period. The Q2 bottom-up EPS estimate (which is an aggregation of the median EPS estimates of all the companies in the index for Q2) decreased by 4.0% (to $42.36 from $44.13) during this period. Combined (adding the Q1 2018 and Q2 2018 bottom-up EPS estimates), the bottom-up EPS estimate for the first half of 2019 (1H 2019) decreased by 4.5% (to $81.73 from $85.56) over the past three months. How significant is a 4.5% decline in the bottom-up EPS estimate for the first half of a year during this period? How does this decrease compare to previous years?