The S&P 500 Got A Boost From These Earnings

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Great earnings results over the past couple of days has boosted S&P 500 blended growth up to 6.4 percent from 6.0 percent yesterday. After yesterday's closing bell, Walt Disney Co DIS reported blowout earnings of $1.27, beating the Estimize consensus by $0.17 and the Wall Street consensus by $0.19. This is the most the company has surpassed the Street's expectations in the last 15 years! Revenues were also a bright spot, coming in close to $500M above estimates. The company linked its success to record themepark visitations over the holidays, and are looking to have another blockbuster year in 2015, mostly due to studio entertainment which will be releasing 12 new films this year, despite the fact that this segment saw revenues dip 2 percent in Q4 due to difficult YoY comparisons.

Gilead Sciences, Inc. GILD was another big winner yesterday, posting Q4 EPS of $2.43 and surpassing both the Estimize and Wall Street consensus, posting YoY growth of 342 percent. Revenues also beat by a hefty $500M margin, and grew 134 percent YoY. Despite the beat, admission that the biotech company is offering steeper-than-expected discounts on its hepatitis C drugs to health insurers who had complained about the price, concessions that are necessary now that the company has competition with Abbvie in the hep C market. Better than expected Q4 numbers boost earnings growth for the S&P 500 biotech sector to 64 percent and revenues to 43 percent.

This morning we had a couple of promising reports from the consumer names. General Motors Company GM posted EPS of $1.19, greatly exceeding expectations from both Estimize and the Street, and growing an incredible 78 percent. This is the biggest beat since the reorganized company IPO'd in 2010. Revs on the other hand didn't fare so well, coming in below estimates and declining 2 percent. Whirlpool proved that some durable goods companies are doing just fine, reporting their largest EPS beat in 4 years due to successful acquisitions in Asia and Europe.

How are we doing?

Expectations for S&P 500 earnings growth for the fourth quarter stand at 6.4 percent. Revenues are anticipated to come in with 1.5 percent growth.

Leaders

Earnings:

Health Care (23.1%). Notable industry: Biotechnology (63.8%).

Information Technology (17.4%). Notable industry: Semiconductors (30.7%)

Revenues:

Health Care (9.4%). Notable industry: Biotech (42.7%).

Information Technology (8.6%). Notable industry: Tech Harware, Storage & Peripherals (16.3%)

Laggards

Earnings:

Energy (-19.8%). Notable industry: Oil, Gas and Consumable Fuels (-22.3%)

Materials (-0.5%). Notable industry: Paper & Forest Products(-27.0%)

Financials (-1.2%). Notable industry: Banks (-4.8%)

Revenues:

Energy (-13.9%). Notable industry: Oil, Gas and Consumable Fuels (­-16.3%).

Materials (-2.7%). Notable industry: Paper & Forest Products (­-18.0%).

Beat/Miss/Match

Earnings: With 254 S&P 500 companies reporting thus far, 58 percent have beaten the Estimize consensus, 35 percent have missed and 7 percent have met. This is compared to Wall Street estimates, of which 72 percent of companies have beat on the bottom­-line, 18 percent have missed and 10 percent have met.

Revenue: 46 percent have beaten the Estimize consensus, while 54 percent have missed. For revenues, 55 percent of companies have beat the Wall Street estimate, while 4 percent have missed.