Bassanese Bites: AHE at 3%! – Week beginning: 29 October 2018

Global equity market weakness – led by NASDAQ’s tech darlings – was again the dominant market feature of the past week.  That said, what was curious is that there seemed few obvious macro-events behind the market’s  dive.  It appears much ado about nothing.

US GDP, for example, grew at an annualised 3.5% rate in Q3 – slightly beating market expectations.  Although there is the usual array of hits and misses, the US Q3 earnings reporting season is so far also progressing well.  According to FactSet, 77% of the 48% of S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings beat estimates, which is still above the 5-year average of 71%. 59% of companies have beaten revenue estimates, which is equal to the 5-year average. As for guidance, 63% of companies have issued a negative outlook, which is below the 5-year average of 70%.  Of course, a focus of the past week were the results of Alphabet (Google) and Amazon. Although both released better than expected earnings results, each had revenue just shy of expectations.

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