It may be earnings season for the S&P 500 — but revenue is on top of many investors' minds. And some companies are showing top lines that top all views.
Seven stocks in the S&P 500, including biotech Moderna, financial Northern Trust and miner Freeport-McMoRan, reported second-quarter revenue that topped expectations by 10% or more, says an Investor's Business Daily analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence and MarketSurge.
And that's a welcome surprise.
S&P 500 Revenue Beats Are Small So Far
Companies in the S&P 500 are only topping expectations by 1.1% so far in the second quarter, says John Butters of FactSet. And all told, S&P 500 earnings are only 5% higher than the second quarter of last year.
Contrast those statistics against bank Northern Trust. The company in the second quarter posted revenue of $2.7 billion. That's up more than 53% from the same period a year ago. And that topped analysts' expectations by more than 48%.
Moderna is a slightly different situation. The vaccine maker's top line beat forecasts by more than 78% in the quarter. But it's still suffering a hangover from the post-Covid drop-off in business. Its revenue in the second quarter topped $241 million. But that's down nearly 30% from the same year-ago period.
But still, it's good to see plenty of upside surprises for revenue.
Biggest S&P 500 Revenue Upside Surprises
For the second quarter of 2024 so far
| Company Name | Ticker | Revenue beat % |
|---|---|---|
| Moderna | MRNA | 78.6% |
| Northern Trust | NTRS | 48.1 |
| APA | APA | 21.8 |
| Aflac | AFL | 19.1 |
| DTE Energy | DTE | 16.8 |
| Public Service Enterprise | PEG | 11.8 |
| Freeport-McMoRan | FCX | 10.1 |
