Does Earnings Pessimism Portend Favorably for the SP 500 Heading Into Earnings Season?
In a word (or words), “Yes, yes it does” and we can thank the weekly Bespoke Report for the background and analysis.
Several times on this blog, I’ve written about Bespoke’s excellent “below-the-radar” research, even though as a frequent guest on CNBC’s Fast Money, (the Melissa Lee anchored, 4:00 pm central version), Paul Hickey, one of the founding partners is a frequent guest.
In this week’s Bespoke Report, the Bespoke crew addressed the negative sentiment surrounding Q3 ’15 earnings season, and compared SP 500 returns to the negative sentiment....MUCH MORE
Some conclusions:
(My comment: Bespoke’s “net revisions spread” is a SP 1500 measure that tracks negative versus positive EPS revisions similar to what I have shared with readers here in this spreadsheet: FC-eps estimate revisions, over the years. Readers have seen this spreadsheet before, and it provides a good historical record of positive versus negative analyst revisions.
- “In the 19 prior quarters where analysts were more negative than positive, the SP 500 averaged a gain of 2.32%, (median +3.64%) with positive returns 84% of the time.”
- “Finally, the worst SP 500 performance during earnings season comes when the net revisions spread was positive heading into earnings season.”
The blocks highlighted represent the peak earnings season, usually between Alcoa’s and Wal-Mart’s earnings reports, when the bulk of the SP 500 will report, and the comments on the right hand side, are simply my summary of the financial “crisis du jour”, which captivate the financial news networks. It is always something.)
Summary / conclusion: While this coming week could be bumpy given October’s option expiration week, Bespoke provides some worthwhile quotes and juicy data...
- Here is the rub, kids: by Bespoke’s math, “at a level of -24%, the current earnings season revisions spread is one of the more negative levels of we have seen heading into an earnings season, during this bull market.Looking back, at prior earnings seasons where the revisions spread was below negative 20% heading into earnings season, the SP 500 rallied an average of 4.35% during earnings season with gains each time.”
- “Weakness in Energy and Basic Materials sectors has been and continues to be a big contributor to the overall negative tone in analyst sentiment.” (No surprise if you have been reading this blog for a while.)
- “Analysts are marginally less negative on the prospects of companies with more US exposure than companies with more international exposure.”
- …when analyst sentiment is negative heading into earnings season, the two best performing sectors have been Consumer Discretionary and Industrial’s.”
