Friday
Feb192010
Final Earnings Season Stats
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:04PM The fourth quarter earnings season came to an end yesterday with Wal-Mart's report. Below we highlight the final earnings and revenue beat rate for all US companies that reported this earnings season. For the third quarter in a row, 68% of companies beat earnings estimates. The revenue beat rate was really strong this quarter at 70% -- the highest reading since Q4 '04. Does this put the "strong bottom line, but weak top line" bearish argument to rest?
Reader Comments (1)
A question. Has there ever been a situation where the revenue beat rate was higher than the EPS beat rate? From the chart, it doesn't look that way. Just wondering, because it seems like that could only happen if the economy was really growing and companies started adding bodies and raw material prices started rising faster than the companies themselves could raise their own prices.
I guess you could say that if revenues rose faster than earnings, we'd be in an inflationary situation.