Three Weeks Of Earnings and It’s Now Clear Which ETF Sectors Are Strongest (XLE, XLF, IYT, QQQQ, IYH, XLU, XLY, XLP)
Three weeks of second quarter earnings season are in the books. Here’s the status so far broken down by sector (analysis is provided below):
| Sector | Earnings Beats | Y-o-Y Earnings Increases | Y-o-Y Revenue Increases | Upside Guidance | Total Providing Guidance | Total Number of Stocks Reporting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Industries | 48 | 54 | 65 | 9 | 23 | 72 |
| Capital Goods | 104 | 95 | 99 | 21 | 56 | 124 |
| Consumer Durables | 69 | 67 | 77 | 12 | 43 | 91 |
| Consumer Non-Durables | 47 | 42 | 45 | 5 | 27 | 64 |
| Consumer Services | 106 | 90 | 111 | 10 | 81 | 152 |
| Energy | 52 | 43 | 53 | 1 | 11 | 78 |
| Finance | 105 | 98 | 57 | 0 | 9 | 171 |
| Health Care | 82 | 77 | 92 | 14 | 69 | 113 |
| Miscellaneous | 23 | 27 | 31 | 4 | 24 | 42 |
| Public Utilities | 29 | 23 | 31 | 4 | 17 | 45 |
| Technology | 163 | 170 | 207 | 36 | 136 | 238 |
| Transportation | 35 | 34 | 38 | 2 | 3 | 42 |
| Totals | 863 | 820 | 906 | 118 | 499 | 1232 |
Before getting into individual sectors, let’s start by looking at some of the totals and calculating the percentages.
- Earnings beats: 70%
- Year-over-Year Earnings Increases: 66.5%, down a few percent compared to last week’s results
- Year-over-Year Revenue Increases: 73.5%
- Upside Guidance out of those providing guidance: 24%, down about two percent compared to last week
- Upside Guidance out of total stocks reporting: 10%
Unless otherwise noted, this week’s percentages are pretty similar to last week’s. These summary numbers show that as earnings season has progressed, company fundamentals have remained pretty strong.
Here are a few more ways of looking at the results:
- There are 212 companies (17% of those that have reported) that have exceeded earnings estimates by 20% or more.
- There are 626 companies (almost 51%) that have registered year-over-year increases in earnings of 20% or more.
- There are 371 companies (30%) that have registered year-over-year increases in revenues of 20% or more.
Sector results –
There are several sectors that seem to be faring particularly well:
- Capital Goods and Transportation have the most earnings beats at over 80%
- Consumer Durables, Consumer Non-Durables, Health Care and Consumer Services registered between 70% and 76% earnings beats
- Transportation has the highest percentages of y-o-y earnings increases (81%) and y-o-y revenue increases (90%)
- Between 71% and 77% of the companies in the Capital Goods, Basic Industries, Consumer Durables and Technology sectors have registered y-o-y earnings increases
- Between 80% and 90% of companies in the Capital Goods, Basic Industries, Consumer Durables and Technology sectors have registered y-o-y revenue gains
Investors have been especially interested in guidance this quarter due to the worries about the economy slowing in the second half of the year. Only about 40% of companies have offered forward guidance so far this earnings season. Here’s how it looks:
- Transportation has the highest percentage of upside guidance but it is only 2 out of 3 companies so it can effectively be ignored
- Roughly 38% of companies in the Basic Industries and Capital Goods sectors have provided upside guidance
- Consumer Durables and Technology are next with 28% and 26% of companies, respectively, in each sector offering upside guidance
Noticeable by its absence in our discussion above is the Financial sector which continues to rank near the bottom in terms of our earnings season performance.
If you are interested in using this data to guide your investing, there are many sector ETFs that will fairly closely match the sector results discussed above.
Related ETFs:
- Energy Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLE)
- Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLF)
- iShares Dow Jones Transportation Average (NYSE:IYT)
- PowerShares QQQ (NASDAQ:QQQQ)
- iShares Dow Jones US Healthcare (NYSE:IYH)
- Utilities Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLU)
- Consumer Discret Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLY)
- Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLP)
About: I am a long-time individual investor with an engineering degree and an MBA. I worked in aerospace-defense for 15 years and have spent the last decade or so working for a large financial services firm. This academic, work and investing background helps me cast an informed eye on tech stocks, the stock market and the economy and also provides the skills needed to write the software that supports the various parts of the site.



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