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The market faces a busy week on the earnings front with 120 S&P 500 (^GSPC) companies reporting quarterly results, including Tesla (TSLA), Chipotle (CMG), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Boeing (BA), and others.
Yahoo Finance Contributor and Macro Talk News founder Hope King joins Catalysts to discuss what to watch during earnings announcements.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here.
120 S&P 500 companies set to report quarterly results this week. That'll include Tesla, Chipotle, Boeing and Alphabet. Just 12% of the S&P companies have already reported first quarter results. Data from FactSet showing 71% of those companies have reported earnings per share above Wall Street estimates, but that's actually below the five-year average of 77%. Joining us now to break down some of what we can expect moving forward, Yahoo Finance contributor, Hope Kane. Hope, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming on this morning. Hope is the founder of Macro Talk News. And and hope, I'm curious, what are the signals that you are watching out for this earning season? What are you going to be watching for this week?
Thank you so much for having me. I love that my first reporters with you, Madison. And as a journalist now focused on the macro themes, it's all about outlook this quarter. It's usually, of course, about outlook, but it's even more important this earning season because you've seen so many companies become more hesitant to talk about how they're approaching the uncertainty. So whether they're going to give guidance, and if they give guidance, are they confident? Do they sound like they have a plan? Those are some of the signals that I'm watching for because as we move forward through the rest of the year, if companies are not putting out guidance, that suggests a lot of things. They might be very cautious about what they want to put out because putting out a bad guidance number is even worse than giving no guidance. And if you think about how companies are trying to plan, that gives a signal to the rest of the industry of how they're doing. So I know Anne talked about how United gave two different potential pictures. I think that's really smart because it goes to show, they're thinking about the scenarios. They want to give transparency as best they can. And they're not doing what Delta did, which is to withdraw some of its guidance.
And hope, this week we are going to start to hear from some of the big tech names, obviously Tesla and Alphabet, but also some other tech names, like IBM are in the mix as well. What is the single biggest earnings print that you're going to be watching most closely this week?
I mean, you hate to say it, but you know it's always Tesla, right? You've got Tesla. You've got Alphabet coming off its anti-trust loss. For Tesla specifically, I was going through Say Technologies platform. They're a platform that aggregates retail shareholder questions. And one of the ones that was voted to the very top from a retail investor is did Tesla experience any meaningful changes in order flow rate in Q1 relating to all of the rumors of brand damage? I know you guys have been talking about this. This is a big concern for the company going forward. Not only are they dealing with the effects of the tariffs of supply chain disruption, the brand perception around the world, you're seeing the attacks on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and and parking lots here around the US. I mean, that's having a negative impression on future buyers, on current buyers. So the fact that this is one of the most top-voted questions, I would be very curious to see how Tesla leadership answers this on the call.
Hope, we're also getting results from some consumer packaged goods companies this week. We've got PepsiCo. We've got Proctor and Gamble. What about the focus there? And what is this going to tell you, do you think, about the state of consumers' wallets right now?
So CPG is a huge sector to watch when it comes to earnings. And I think for consumers, we know that if companies are currently raising their prices, that they are taking advantage of the situation. So what I'm most focused on now, when it comes to the earnings coming out of CPG consumer products at large, is how they're managing their margins. If you're moving supply chains, if you've got to re-route some of let's say your oatmeal, if you're a food maker of of Quaker Oats and and the like, then you're going to have to pass that on. But do you pass it on in a way that will turn consumers off? So the balance between margins and loyalty is going to be very critical. Again, because some of these tariffs are currently on a 90-day pause, I don't think we're going to have all of the answers. I don't think the leadership on the calls will give a lot of detail if, and if they do, it means that they are really resilient, they're very agile. And these two themes are also really important right now because if you know that a company has an agile strategy, it means that they've been really thinking about it, running simulations on how they can move things around, and that their brand is maybe strong enough to withstand the antagonism really now in the markets, tariffs, inflation. I mean, these, of course, are are going to be the inputs into the earnings, but they're not the real story. The real story is, how resilient are these companies? How agile is their strategy? And if they're confident enough to give any outlook and what does that outlook actually sound like.
Hope, we're also going to be getting results from some defense and aerospace companies, many of which rely heavily on federal funding for government contracts. Given everything that's going on in DC right now, what are you expecting to hear from these names?
I mean, the same thing is, if they have a diversified strategy. Are they agile enough? You have GE Aerospace reporting. You have Boeing reporting. I mean, these companies have large businesses. So maybe, you know, for Boeing specifically, we know they have other issues they've got to resolve and answer for, but with the budget cuts with the military spending in focus, that's going to be really key for investors to understand is, how impacted will they be if those dollars shift over to smaller startups. And don't forget, government contracts, I mean, they really affect government contract workers. And we know in the labor market, that's been a big question mark is how those workers will be affected ultimately.