Apple Inc.’s AAPL-Q amazing quarterly earnings, released in January, continue to distort the U.S. market. Apple showed a profit in its fiscal first quarter of $13.1-billion – well ahead of expectations and more than double the $6-billion in earnings last year.
That’s a big-enough gain, and Apple is a big-enough company, to have a huge impact on the average earnings gain for companies within the S&P 500 – so big, in fact, that maybe some adjustments are in order.
Jonathan Golub, the chief U.S. market strategist at UBS, noted recently (via Crossing Wall Street and Bloomberg News) that without Apple’s contribution, S&P 500 earnings have risen a mere 1.6 per cent so far this reporting season. According to the Bloomberg article, S&P 500 earnings – when you include Apple – has risen 3.5 per cent during the reporting season.
From Bloomberg: “Apple’s report ‘obfuscates the fact that the underlying earnings trend is really weak,’ Golub said. ‘It’s a terrific company, but it’s also important you get a sense of how the average stock, the average company is doing. You want to make sure you don’t distort that view.’”
