This week will be the busiest yet this reporting period when it comes to earnings releases.  As we do throughout the key six-week stretch of earnings season, below is a list of the 40 largest companies set to release Q1 2018 numbers this week.  For each stock, we provide its expected report date and time, its consensus analyst EPS and revenue estimate, its historical EPS and revenue beat rate, and its average one-day share price change (%) in response to its historical quarterly reports.  All of this data is pulled from our popular Earnings Screener that’s available to Bespoke Institutional members.

Monday’s main report to watch is Alphabet (GOOG) after the close.  The stock is currently projected to earn $12.04/share and post revenues of $24.5 billion.  Historically, GOOG has beaten consensus EPS estimates 68.5% of the time and exceeded revenue estimates 72.2% of the time.  On average, GOOG sees a gain of +1.80% on its earnings reaction day (which will be tomorrow’s trading day in this case).

Tuesday is a huge day for blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average companies.  In the morning, we’ll hear from five Dow members: Verizon (VZ), Coca-Cola (KO), 3M (MMM), United Tech (UTX), and Caterpillar (CAT).  Of these five, UTX beats EPS the most often at 92.4%, and it also averages the best one-day returns at +0.75%.  Amgen (AMGN), Texas Instruments (TXN), and Chubb (CB) all report on Tuesday after the close.

Wednesday’s key reports include Boeing (BA) in the morning, and then Facebook (FB), Visa (V), and Qualcomm (QCOM) after the close.  Facebook’s numbers might be the most closely followed of any company this season given all the attention it has been paid over the last couple of months.  Historically, FB has beaten EPS and revenue estimates 95.7% of the time, and it has averaged a gain of 3.45% on its past earnings reaction days.  Needless to say, investors have become accustomed to strong earnings from FB.

Thursday’s biggest reports come after the close when Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC), and Starbucks (SBUX) post Q1 numbers.  These four companies combined are projected to post revenues of $90 billion.

Finally, Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) — the two main Dow 30 Energy stocks — both close out the busy week with reports on Friday before the open.

Bespoke Premium is an excellent resource during earnings season.  Along with daily commentary, the service includes access to our interactive Earnings Calendar and our updated list of earnings triple plays.  Start a two-week free trial to try it out for yourself!

Below is a look at the 2018 YTD performance of 76 country stock markets around the world.  For each country, we generally use its most widely quoted stock market index, and returns are shown in local currencies.

The average year-to-date performance of the 76 countries shown is a gain of 1.66%.  Of the 76 countries, 44 are up, while 32 are down.  Note that five of the seven “G7” developed countries are performing in the bottom half of the group, with only Italy and France ranking in the top half.  The US ranks 44th out of 76 with a near flat-line change of +0.02% on the year.  Of the remaining G7 countries, Japan, Germany, the UK, and Canada are all in the red by -2.9% or more.

Just six countries have posted gains of more than 10% on the year, with Ukraine leading the way at +17.78%.  Bermuda, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Brazil round out the top six.  There are eight countries down more than 5%, with the Philippines, Dubai UAE, and China at the bottom of the list.

Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of the favorite things we read over the past week. The links are mostly market related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.

Tech Dystopia

Palantir Knows Everything About You by Peter Waldman, Lizette Chapman, and Jordan Robertson (Bloomberg)

After a JPMorgan team that partnered with data analytics company Palantir went rogue, the company curtailed use of the firm’s services. What makes this concerning is the fact that Palantir also partners with law enforcement around the country, providing police a potentially egregious weapon that can be misused. [Link]

The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework by Melissa McEwen (Quartz)

Tech companies are taking to assigning large batches of work as evidence that potential hires are competent. [Link]

Arrogance Peaks in Silicon Valley by M. G. Siegler (500ish Words)

A righteous and warranted polemic against the insulated bubble of ideas that Silicon Valley has become, out of touch and impatient with society as a whole. [Link]

Tech Utopia

The End of the Joint As We Know It by Alyssa Bereznak (The Ringer)

With former Speaker of the House John Boehner partnering with a marijuana comapny and Senate Minority Leader Schumer calling for national legalization this week, the war on weed appears to be winding down. Get ready for a wave of new ways to imbibe the intoxicant. [Link]

Robot Conquers One of the Hardest Human Tasks: Assembling Ikea Furniture by Niraj Chokshi (NYT)

A robot has successfully assembled a piece of furniture from Ikea, achieving what we ourselves have failed at before and offering a vision of a world without Swedish instructions. [Link; soft paywall, auto-playing video]

Stinks To High Heaven

The UK Refused To Raid A Company Suspected Of Money Laundering, Citing Its Tory Donations by Heidi Blake, Tom Warren, Richard Holmes, and Jane Bradley (Buzzfeed)

In a bombshell piece of investigative reporting, Buzzfeed details a decision not to raid a company despite evidence of wrongdoing because they are a donor to the current government’s party and a charity linked to the Royal Family. [Link]

A Train Full of Poop From New York Is Stranded in a Tiny Alabama Town by Jeff Martin and Jay Reeves (Bloomberg/AP)

New York exports human waste thanks to a federal ban on dumping into oceans, and one train carrying a load of that export is currently stranded to the dismay of a small Alabama town. [Link]

Sports

As Teams Seek More Relief, 13-Man Pitching Staffs Are the New Normal by Jared Diamond (WSJ)

The days of the complete game are long gone, as high pitch speeds and freakishly talented hitters have eroded the starter’s ability to go deep into the later innings. Now, shifts in strategy are again pushing up the number of relief pitchers necessary for a team to function. [Link; paywall]

Everyone Wants To Go Home During Extra Innings — Maybe Even The Umps by Michael Lopez and Brian Mills (538)

By the time innings stretch to double-digits, umpires start to get ready for the end of the game just like the rest of us. [Link]

How the Boston Marathon’s Runner-Up Shocked the Running World by Sara Germano (WSJ)

The first American woman in 33 years won the Boston Marathon, and her story is remarkable: mid-twenties, unknown, unsponsored, and running her second marathon ever. Her story is one of grit more than extreme athletic ability, arguably making it all the more impressive. [Link]

Metals

Treasure island: Rare metals discovery on remote Pacific atoll is worth billions of dollars by Chris Ciaccia (Fox News)

So-called “rare earths” aren’t actually that “rare” but they are certainly valuable and a discovery on a tiny Japanese atoll has been heralded as a game changer worth billions. [Link]

Russia Sanctions Throw Global Aluminum Industry Into Chaos by Thomas Biesheuvel and Jack Farchy (Bloomberg)

Sanctions on Russia’s United Co. Rusal have led to major disruptions in the global aluminum value chain; the company produces both inputs and final outputs, making the entire thing quite a mess. [Link; auto-playing video]

Helpful Hints

27 Incredibly Useful Things You Didn’t Know Chrome Could Do by JR Raphael (Fast Company)

Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: helpful productivity tips for the ubiquitous Google web browser. [Link]

Publishing

Why All My Books Are Now Free (Aka A Lesson In Amazon Money Laundering) (Meb Faber)

An interesting post describing the litany of non-publisher booksellers on Amazon and how they may be used for money laundering. [Link]

Taxes

Americans Spent Record Amounts on Accounting Fees Last Year by Alexandre Tanzi and Vincent Del Giudice (Bloomberg)

Tax preparers of various types hauled in $44bn in revenue in Q4, working out to roughly $135 per person. [Link]

Dining

The Quarterback of the Kitchen? It’s Not Always the Chef by Tejal Rao (NYT)

While the head chef gets the TV shows, the expediter is the real hero, making sure that the complicated dance of the kitchen staff stays in sync and that dishes get to tables quickly. [Link]

Read Bespoke’s most actionable market research by starting a two-week free trial today!  Get started here.

Have a great Sunday!

Two days ago, the percentage of S&P 500 Industry Groups trading above their 50-DMAs reached 66.6%, which was a huge improvement from the 0% reading we saw back in late March.  Over the last two days, we’ve seen this percentage dip back below 50% just as the S&P 500 did the same today.  At the surface, breadth in individual groups appears to be tracking the S&P 500 pretty closely.

Looking a little more closely, though, breadth isn’t as solid as it may seem.  The table below shows each of the 24 S&P 500 Industry Groups and how they’ve performed YTD as well as where they are trading relative to their 50-DMAs.  Note in this table that although 11 out of 24 Industry Groups are above their 50-DMAs, many of them are hanging on by a thread.  For example, three of the Industry Groups (Materials, Div Financials, and Software and Services) are less than 0.1% above their 50-DMAs and another two are less than 1% above that level.  In this current market environment, it wouldn’t take much of a decline to send all five of these Industry Groups back below their 50-DMAs.  In fact, the only Industry Group that would be immune to a one-day sell-off dragging it below its own 50-DMA is Energy!  On the flipside, the only Industry Group currently below its 50-DMA that is within a percent of getting back above that level is Capital Goods (-0.18%).  In other words, while it wouldn’t take much of a decline to make this breadth reading look really bad, it would take a pretty sizable rally to make it look good.

In terms of YTD performance, just eight Industry Groups are in the green for the year as of now, while twice that number are down on the year.  The biggest losers by far are both from the Consumer Staples sector.  The Household and Personal Products group is down a whopping 14.9% on the year already, while Food Beverage & Tobacco stocks are down over 12%.  Perhaps the irony of all ironies this year is that the Retailing Group is up 14.6% YTD.  Before anyone starts thinking retail stocks are seeing some sort of renaissance, keep in mind that practically all of the gains in the group are the result of Amazon.com (AMZN), which is up 31% YTD and Netflix (NFLX), which is up over 70%.  Besides these two big winners, the average YTD performance of stocks in the Retailing group is a decline of over 3%.

Earnings beat rates have been very strong recently. In the 12 weeks ending February 16th, 69.1% of companies beat EPS, and over 72% of companies beat on revenues. These numbers have moderated somewhat since then but still remain extremely strong (65.8% and 70.2% respectively). For EPS, recent levels of beat rates on a rolling 12 week basis have been the strongest since the aftermath of the last recession. Revenue beat rates have been dramatically stronger, with the best beat rate since 2004. It shouldn’t be surprising that economic data has also been very strong relative to expectations. In the charts below, we show the rolling 12 week beat rates for EPS and revenues, versus the 12 week rolling average of the Citi Economic Surprise Index for the United States. As the charts show, while the correlation between these two related indicators of strong results versus expectations aren’t perfectly correlated, they do tend to move together over time. One note of caution: the Citi Economic Surprise index has continued to pull back in recent weeks, and is currently at the lowest levels since October of 2017. That suggests that the stellar beat rates of last earnings season won’t repeat as this earnings season heats up, though they are likely to remain pretty strong given the first few reports we’ve gotten.