By Greg Peel
Earnings results, and lots of them. These will dominate proceedings in the local market next week, and the week after, assuming no substantial macro developments.
The FNArena Corporate Results Monitor is currently showing 65% beats to date, which is quite simply unheard of (in the history of the Monitor), but it’s still early days by number of reporting companies. That changes next week.
Last August’s season was, by the numbers, the best ever (ditto), but misleading given the sheer uncertainty wrought by the pandemic, an almost total lack of guidance, and a tendency by analysts to err to the low-side in their forecasts. Has much changed?
Certainly we now better appreciate from experience the effects of covid across different industries although some sectors continue to surprise, such as anything stay-at-home retail. Most, but not all, companies have since provided guidance.
And I would presume there remains a tendency among analysts to go in low and not look foolish.
The next two weeks will reveal all.
Economically we’ll see January jobs numbers on Thursday and preliminary retail sales data on Friday.
The US will see numbers for industrial production and retail sales, while flash estimates of February PMIs will be provided on Friday across the globe. The minutes of the last Fed meeting are out on Wednesday.
The US is closed on Monday night for Washington’s birthday. Bet he’s turning in his grave at the moment.
China’s New Year holiday extends through Wednesday.
There’s no point in trying to highlight particular companies reporting next week given the sheer number. Please refer to the FNArena calendar (link above) or Results Monitor, which also provides daily updated assessment of results to date.
