The first quarter left 1 month of earnings reporting to go but I thought I would just share some consensus operating earnings and revenue estimates for the companies in S&P 500, S&P 400 and S&P 600.
They would represent the US large cap, mid cap and small cap earnings.
Why are the earnings important?
Well, if you buy a US equity index now, the index would have priced in what they know currently probably. The earnings, revenues, profit margin of what was announced. The index also priced in the growth in the earnings, revenues in the future in this price.
So what will move the price is when the earnings outlook changes for the worse or better, when they are eventually announced or near announcement.
Some investors don’t like to buy when or don’t buy expensive stuff and we know the current price, it would be good to know how valuation look, relative to the past.
So lets get started. This article won’t be long.
S&P 500 – US Large Cap
The first chart shows the US large cap annual revenue growth forecast:
The blue line represents the 2024 forecast, which we know have already happened. You can see the part in 2025 where I drew the pink circle. The revenue had a jump which is likely not a forecast but what actually happen after the recent Q4 2024 financial announcement.
Revenue came in slightly better than expected but its not too far off. Revenue for 2024 for large cap was so consistent even going back to 2023.
The red line shows the 2025 or this years forecast and green line 2026. The observation is with the recent guidance from individual stock reporting revenue is anticipated to be lower in 2025, with the same anticipated growth rate in 2026.
The chart below shows the operating earnings growth forecast:
The blue line (2024) shows a surge from 10% to more than 11%, indicating that earnings growth was better than anticipated in the recent announcement. The red line (2025) shows that growth in 2025 will take a plunge but the fall in earnings growth will be from 14% to less than 12%.
Based on the analyst estimates, which kind of link to the guidance provide by companies, we are still anticipating double digit earnings growth for this year.
S&P 400 – US Mid Cap
We start off with the revenue growth forecast of the stocks that form the mid-cap index:
The blue line (2024) show a surprise to the upside, but the difference with the large cap is that the red line (2025) shows a surprise to the upside rather than downside. Of course, all these are estimates because the forecast may go down over time as the financial market changes.
The mid cap stock earnings for the last quarter is better than anticipated but that brings up to almost 0% earnings growth for 2024. But what the analyst are anticipating is lower 2025 earnings growth than anticipated falling from about 14% to 12%.
That will not be too different from the US large cap stocks.
S&P 600 – US Small Cap
So here is the revenue growth forecast for the US Small Cap stocks:
The revenue for 2024 (this time blue line) came in weaker as more and most announcements happen such that the revenue growth in 2024 is almost 0%. The 2025 revenue forecast (red line) was higher, which brings revenue growth to be inline with the mid cap stocks.
Like the revenue, the 2024 earnings growth (blue line) finished even worse. Small cap registered a -12% earnings growth in 2024. The earnings growth line for 2025 (red) show a more volatile estimation where earnings growth forecast was heading lower before an upward adjustments. This is very different from the same time in 2024 (observe the start of the blue line in 2024) where the forecast just headed down.
Small cap earnings are estimated to grow at 20% in 2025.
Perhaps analyst is anticipating better earnings from more interest rate easing.
So Large Cap and Mid Cap both anticipated to grow at 10-12% and Small Cap 20%.
Current Large, Mid and Small Cap Index Valuations
Why not let’s review where we are at with valuations. The valuations from Yardeni Research is based on forward earnings forecast.
Here is the S&P 500:
If we take out those euphoric and depressive times, large cap forward earnings typically stay around 15 times. This is so in the well growing early 1990s. The 2010 to 2020 show a recovering and valuation expansion from low valuation to the 15 times valuation.
It is only in the last five years where we see 20 times valuation to be the norm.
While prices have corrected, US large cap is still about 22 times forward earnings.
Here is the S&P 400:
From the chart, the mid-cap typically trades slightly above 15 times. We should note that unlike the S&P 500, we only have data from 1999 onwards so we cannot compare how things are before this. Notice that valuations never shot past 20 times forward earnings.
Anytime the index dip below 15 times might be a good opportunity if you have more money to tranche in. And we should not be affected by high 20 times PE valuation of the US large cap because the nature of the mid caps look rather different.
Here is the S&P 600:
Valuations for the small cap look rather similar to the mid-caps. They would typically trade above 15 times. What is interesting is in the 2000-2008 period, where we know small-caps (and mid-caps) did better than large caps, valuations stayed around the 15 times region.
I guess the US large cap underperformed because valuations went near 25 times and they corrected all the way down to 15 times. If you take 25/15 -1 that is a big big drop. The small cap valuation didn’t became excessive.
Long story short, we talked about excessive US valuations, relative to historical. But by all accounts, perhaps what is different is in the US large cap.
You get good performance in the past, but you would have to have your own self talk regarding the higher relative valuations.
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Kyith is the Owner and Sole Writer behind Investment Moats. Readers tune in to Investment Moats to learn and build stronger, firmer wealth foundations, how to have a Passive investment strategy, know more about investing in REITs and the nuts and bolts of Active Investing.
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Kyith worked as an IT operations engineer from 2004 to 2019. Currently, he works as a Senior Solutions Specialist in Insurance Start-up Havend. All opinions on Investment Moats are his own and does not represent the views of Providend.
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