FactSet reported the following for S&P 500 earnings through 2/9.
This is a very helpful 10,000 feet view and provides good benchmarking and comparisons.
Earnings Scorecard: For Q4 2023 (with 67% of S&P 500 companies reporting actual results), 75% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive EPS surprise, which is below the 5-year average of 77% but above the 10-year average of 74%
Earnings Growth: For Q4 2023, the blended (year-over-year) earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 is 2.9%. If 2.9% is the actual growth rate for the quarter, it will mark the second-straight quarter that the index has reported earnings growth.
65% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive revenue surprise, which is below the 5-year average of 68% but above the 10-year average of 64%.
In aggregate, companies are reporting revenues that are 1.2% above the estimates, which is below the 5-year average of 2.0% and below the 10-year average of 1.3%.
If 3.9% is the actual revenue growth rate for the quarter, it will mark the 13th consecutive quarter of revenue growth for the index.
It is interesting to note that analysts were projecting record-high EPS for the S&P 500 of $243.41 in CY 2024 and $275.34 in CY 2025 on February 8.
On February 8, the forward 12-month P/E ratio for the S&P 500 was 20.3, which marked the seventh time in the past nine trading days in which the P/E ratio for the index was above 20.0. How does this 20.3 P/E ratio compare to historical averages?
Here is the chart for the historical PE, we have been above the 10 year average of around 18 for a while, and are now above the 5-year average of 19 as well.