With the calendar approaching the middle of October, investors are beginning to turn their focus from Fed Funds interest rate expectations and economic data to how Corporate America performed for the July – September period of 2024.
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According to Business Insider, 432 companies were scheduled to report quarterly earnings this week, with U.S. financial institutions in focus from this Friday until early next week. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) kick things off for the banks on October 11. With the recent cut to short-term interest rates, along with the return of an upward-sloping Treasury curve, investors will be keen to hear updates on how banks are managing their net interest margins (NIM).
Things shift into high gear next week with 734 companies set to report their latest results. That includes large-cap companies like Bank of America (BAC), Netflix (NFLX), Proctor & Gamble (PG), and American Express (AXP).
Tech investors, as per usual, get to anxiously sit through weeks of earnings reports before they hear the latest results from their beloved firms. In order of market capitalization, Apple Corp (AAPL) reports on Halloween Thursday, and Nvidia (NVDA) on October 27, while both Alphabet (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) present their Q3 results on October 24. GOOGL and GOOG shareholders will likely also be on the lookout for management comments regarding fresh rumors that the U.S. Department of Justice wants to see the company divest some key businesses or split.
Aggregate S&P 500 Earnings Expectations
Analysts are looking for S&P 500 (SPX) companies to post quarterly index earnings of $54.67, up 2.9% sequentially and impressively 14.7% higher than the third-quarter of 2023.
Should S&P 500 component companies meet these Q3 expectations, in aggregate, it would translate into a trailing P/E ratio of about 28.55x for the index as of the Wednesday, October 9th market close. That would represent an earnings yield of almost precisely 3.50%. While many investors view this as an indication of an overpriced market, others are banking on AI-driven growth and efficiency hopes, along with lower interest rates, to boost earnings for many quarters to come. Estimates for the year ending December 2025 imply that the S&P 500 is trading at a forward P/E multiple of 22.95x.
Investors should stay tuned to TipRanks as the Q3 earnings season continues to accelerate. TipRanks’ Earnings Calendar is a tool investors can use to keep on top of the latest reports.
