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S&P 500 Likely to Report Earnings Growth Above 15% in Q4 2018

Earnings

By John Butters  |  January 7, 2019

As of today, the S&P 500 is expected to report earnings growth of 11.4% for the fourth quarter. What is the likelihood the index will report an actual earnings increase of 11.4% for the quarter?

Based on the average change in earnings growth due to companies reporting positive earnings surprises, it is likely the index will report earnings growth above 15% for Q4, but below the 25% growth reported in the previous three quarters.

When companies in the S&P 500 report actual earnings above estimates during an earnings season, the overall earnings growth rate for the index increases because the higher actual EPS numbers replace the lower estimated EPS numbers in the calculation of the growth rate. For example, if a company is projected to report EPS of $1.05 compared to year-ago EPS of $1.00, the company is projected to report earnings growth of 5%. If the company reports actual EPS of $1.10 (a $0.05 upside earnings surprise compared to the estimate), the actual earnings growth for the company for the quarter is now 10%, five percentage points above the estimated growth rate (10% - 5% = 5%).

Actual Earnings Averages

Over the past five years on average, actual earnings reported by S&P 500 companies have exceeded estimated earnings by 4.8%. During this same period, 71% of companies in the S&P 500 have reported actual EPS above the mean EPS estimate on average. As a result, from the end of the quarter through the end of the earnings season, the earnings growth rate has typically increased by 3.8 percentage points on average (over the past five years) due to the number and magnitude of upside earnings surprises.

End of the Quarter Growth Estimate vs Actual 

If this average increase is applied to the estimated earnings growth rate at the end of Q4 (December 31) of 12.3%, the actual earnings growth rate for the quarter would be 16.1% (12.3% + 3.8% = 16.1%).

If the index does report growth of 16.1% for Q4 2018, it will mark the first time the index has not reported earnings growth above 20% since Q4 2017. However, it will mark the fifth straight quarter of double-digit earnings growth for the index.

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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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