Early read on earnings season? Dreadful

A little over 200 companies have reported earnings so far this season, and as shown below, 58% of them have beaten consensus earnings estimates. This is the exact same “beat rate” we saw last earnings season.

Unfortunately, top-line revenue numbers haven’t been pretty. As shown below, 43.9% of the companies that have reported have beaten revenue estimates, which would be the weakest reading seen since the financial crisis. Last earnings season, we saw a big bounce in revenue beats after two very weak quarters, but it looks now like we’re reverting back to what we saw in the middle of 2012.

Earnings Revenueearnings

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