“When is $9 billion not enough? Well, let’s not kid ourselves, $9 billion is never really not enough,” Paul Vigna reports for The Wall Street Journal. “One particular cache of billions, though, may be the key to whether or not the so-called earnings recession ends or not.”
“The earnings calendar is clogged this week, with 179 of the S&P 500′s companies reporting. That’s the equivalent of 38.3% of the index’s market value, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices’ Howard Silverblatt,” Vigna reports. “Among that group are 14 of the index’s $100-billion-plus market cap names, including Alphabet, Visa Inc., Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola Co., 3M, and Amazon.com.”
“And Apple,” Vigna reports. “Normally, that would be a good thing. Apple is, after all, a company that regularly posts multi-billion profits, quarter after quarter. It will do so again this quarter as well. The problem, however, is that those multi-billion quarters are getting smaller, not larger. In fact, Apple alone may be extending the S&P 500′s ‘“earnings recession.'”
“Street consensus for the company’s earnings per share is $1.66,” Vigna reports. “The problem is that $1.66 profit is down substantially from a year ago. In last year’s third quarter, Apple earned $1.96 a share. That would make Apple the largest drag on earning growth among tech companies in the S&P 500, according to FactSet’s John Butters.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Guidance, guidance, guidance! What really matters is Q117 (holiday quarter) guidance.
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