Earnings Data Deluge

Pre-market futures are sinking on valuation concerns this morning. This is not from any particular event that happened this morning, though it may have something to do with events that aren’t happening. This morning was to bring us new U.S. Trade Deficit figures, Factory Orders, and Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), but due to the government shutdown — now tied with the longest ever, with 2018-2019, at 35 days — are not out.

The Dow is selling off -304 points, -0.64%, and the S&P 500 -80, -1.16%, at this hour. The Nasdaq is shedding -416 points, -1.59%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 -34, -1.40%. This is illustrated cleanly by the -8% selloff in Palantir (PLTR) shares this morning, after the company easily outperformed estimates in its quarterly report yesterday afternoon. Then again, at +174% stock growth year to date with a 300x P/E, this is what the market does: provides ebb and flow.

We will see jobs numbers tomorrow morning from Automatic Data Processing (ADP), which tallies monthly private-sector payrolls and is looking to rebound from a dire -32K new jobs created in September to a merely bleak +25K for October. Other than that, unless the government somehow opens by Friday morning, we won’t be getting non-farm payroll numbers for last month.

Q3 Earnings Season at a Glance: Pfizer, BP, Shopify & More

We’ll just go over earnings numbers for the plethora of publicly traded companies reporting ahead of today’s open, with so many to account for. Also, these companies may or may not be on a calendar Q3 reporting schedule, but for simplicity’s sake we’ll treat them all as Q3 data:

Big Pharma staple Pfizer (PFE) zoomed past estimates this morning, with quarterly earnings of 87 cents per share beating the Zacks consensus of 66 cents to +31.8%. Shares are still selling off -1% on the news, and -7% year to date.

Integrated oil supermajor BP (BP) reported earnings of 85 cents per share versus analyst expectations of 72 cents, for a +18% positive surprise. Shares are up +2.5% in today’s pre-market, and +18% year to date.

Shopify (SHOP) only met earnings expectations this morning at 34 cents per share, and the stock is trading down -4.6% in the pre-market. This is another big winner year to date, +62%.

Not to be confused, Spotify (SPOT) posted a huge +104.8% earnings beat this morning: $3.83 per share versus $1.87 anticipated. Shares had been up +4% but are now down -2%, +44% year to date.

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) surpassed earnings estimates by 3 cents to $92 cents per share in the currently reported quarter. But that was the extent of the good news in this morning’s report, and shares are -6.6% at this hour.

The biggest winner, surprise-wise, this morning is Hertz (HTZ), which posted a gain of +$0.12 per share versus estimates for a -$0.02 loss. This amounts to a +700% positive earnings surprise. Shares are up +12% on the news, adding to the company’s +35% gains year to date.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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