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Breaking Down Q1 Earnings Results

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Note: The following is an excerpt from this week’s Earnings Trends report. You can access the full report that contains detailed historical actual and estimates for the current and following periods, please click here>>>

Here are the key points:

 

  • The picture emerging from the Q1 earnings season is one of steady improvement and resilience, with the earnings growth pace modestly accelerating and estimates for the coming periods starting to increase. On the flip side, revenue growth remains on a modestly decelerating trend, and companies are struggling to beat revenue estimates. 

 

  • Total earnings for the 139 S&P 500 members that have reported Q1 results are up +4.6% from the same period last year on +3.4% higher revenues, with 78.4% beating EPS estimates and 59.7% beating revenue estimates.

 

  • Looking at Q1 as a whole, total S&P 500 earnings are now expected to be up +4.4% from the same period last year on +3.9% higher revenues. This follows the +6.8% earnings growth on +3.9% higher revenues in 2023 Q4.

 

  • Upward revisions to the Energy sector have been a big contributor to the recent favorable revisions trend for Q2, but it is hardly the only sector enjoying favorable revisions. Half of the 16 Zacks sectors have experienced positive estimate revisions since the start of April.

A notable favorable development on the earnings front is signs of improvement in the overall revisions trend, with estimates in the aggregate starting to go modestly up. We are seeing this trend for the current period (2024 Q2) as well as for full-year 2024 estimates.

This new development has roughly coincided with the start of the Q1 earnings season. That said, a number of sectors, including Tech and Retail, had already been enjoying positive estimate revisions for quite some time. At present, half of the 16 Zacks sectors have higher aggregate earnings estimates relative to what was expected at the start of the year.

The Energy sector is now enjoying favorable estimate revisions as well, as you can see in the revisions charts for Exxon (XOM - Free Report) and Chevron (CVX - Free Report) below.

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Chevron’s current full-year 2024 EPS estimate of $13.58 is down from $15.28 at the end of 2023, but it is up from $13.04 at the end of March 2024. As with Chevron, estimates for Exxon have been going up as well, with the oil major’s $9.70 EPS estimate up +6.5% over the last two weeks.

Unlike the Energy sector, whose revisions trend has just turned positive, the Tech sector has been enjoying a favorable revisions trend for some time now. The chart below shows how the aggregate full-year earnings estimate for the sector has evolved over the past year.

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The chart below shows how S&P 500 aggregate earnings estimates for full-year 2024 have evolved.

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Below, we show the overall earnings picture for the S&P 500 index on an annual basis.

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

A big part of this year’s earnings growth is expected to come from margins reversing last year’s declines and starting to expand again. The expectation is that aggregate net margins this year get back to the 2022 level, with the Tech sector driving most of the gains.


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