Five Themes for Traders to Watch as Earnings Season Kicks Off
- Consensus calls for 3.9% first-quarter earnings growth: BI
- S&P 500 EPS growth expected to eclipse seven tech giants by 4Q
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Wall Street is expecting a subdued earnings season from Corporate America despite the first-quarter’s stock market fireworks.
Yes, the S&P 500 Index rose 10% from January to March. Strategists, however, predict that S&P 500 companies will post their smallest year-over-year profit growth since 2019, just 3.9%, in the first quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. But in this case the market may be onto something, because those forecasts could very well turn out to be overly gloomy — like they were in the fourth quarter, when expectations were for around 1% growth and the actual results turned out to be over 8%.