Another big week ahead of us for US earnings (and for Australia, with two big banks on the list to reveal their profits and dividends).
In the US, 170 S&P 500 companies (including six of the 30 stocks in the Dow) are due to report this week.
Amazon, Apple and Berkshire Hathaway lead the US reporters, with the week ending with the Berkshire annual meeting and investor jamboree on Saturday in Omaha, Nebraska.
Around 43% of S&P 500 companies have reported so far. AMP Chief Economist Shane Oliver says "good news is that 81.2% have beaten expectations, against a norm of 76% and earnings growth expectations have increased to 5.3%yoy, from 4.1% two weeks ago”.
He says earnings growth is likely to end up around 8%yoy for the quarter.
FactSet, the US financial data group, is also upbeat about the current reporting, saying in its end-of-week note that "At the mid-point of the Q1 earnings season, S&P 500 companies continue to perform well compared to expectations."
"Both the percentage of S&P 500 companies reporting positive earnings surprises and the magnitude of earnings surprises are above their 10-year averages. As a result, the index is reporting higher earnings for the first quarter today relative to the end of last week and relative to the end of the quarter.
"On a year-over-year basis, the S&P 500 is reporting earnings growth for the third-straight quarter."
In Australia, Thursday sees NAB (ASX:NAB) release its interim results. On Friday, it's the turn of Macquarie (ASX:MQG) to release its full year figures.
There are some key updates from retailers. Coles (ASX:COL) releases its third quarter sales figures on Tuesday, Woolies (ASX:WOW) on Wednesday, and Thursday sees the annual investor day for Wesfarmers (ASX:WES) when it usually updates its third quarter performance.
There will be a few mining companies – IGO (ASX:IGO) most notably on Tuesday.
Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) is due to hold its Australian AGM on Wednesday. There will be questions about BHP’s (ASX:BHP) $60 billion approach to Anglo American and if Rio has any interest.
And while it reports in the US, the first quarter figures from Albemarle will be out mid week. Together with the figures in IGO’s quarterly the day before, this will give us an idea of how the lithium industry is going.
Anglo’s annual meeting is this week as well — tomorrow. That will possibly the best-attended meeting outside of the Berkshire Hathaway extravaganza.
In the US, it's the turn of big food and drink companies to report — names such as Coca Cola, Kraft Heinz, McDonald’s and Starbucks.
Shell won’t be releasing an upbeat quarterly after Exxon and Chevron reported lower results on Friday. Barrick Gold releases its figures as well, but should do a little better from the higher gold price.
Samsung in South Korea, VW and Daimler in Germany and BYD in China today (Monday) are all due to release.
Global bank, HSBC also reports as does the Anglo-Spanish giant, Santander.
Besides Amazon on Wednesday and Apple the day after, PayPal is also due to report, along with eBay.
