By the end of next year, corporate earnings may have recovered from the anticipated pandemic-induced slump — at least if analysts are right.
What's going on: EPS forecasts for this year have plunged to $128 per share from the $161 expected before the pandemic hit, according to FactSet.
Within the last month, earnings expectations for next year have remained steady. Meantime, expectations for 2o22 have actually edged higher within that same time period.
- Projections for both are still way below where they were at the beginning of 2020 when it looked as though the economy would continue to hum along.
The bottom line: Prospects of a V-shaped recovery are all but dead — except (so far) in the eyes of analysts projecting S&P 500 EPS.
- “Analysts are expecting a ‘V’ shaped recovery in corporate earnings, and Q2 is supposed to be the nadir,” Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, said in a note this week.
Go deeper: Corporate debt issuance has already topped $1 trillion in 2020