Refinitiv data released on Friday showed that the forecast for second-quarter S&P 500 earnings has improved since last week, despite remaining weak. Earnings results for over half of the companies listed on the index have come out so far.
Q2 earnings for companies are estimated to have fallen by 6.4% on a year-over-year basis. Despite still being a decline, this is a significant improvement from the 7.9% drop estimated the previous week.
The projection is based on the earnings results of 254 companies listed on the S&P 500 Index. Around 79% of reports that have already been released have beaten analysts’ expectations.
Among the major winners this week is Google parent company Alphabet Inc. With a 0.1% rise in year-over-year earnings, Alphabet significantly outperformed Wall Street’s expectations of a 5.1% fall.
Stocks have continued to rise as inflation, which remained surprisingly persistent, has been cooling, thereby raising bets that the Federal Reserve will soon end its aggressive monetary tightening campaign.