Today from Lance Roberts on the rise of corporate earnings:
"Currently, while earnings have ticked up modestly with the recovery in oil prices, the price of the S&P 500 has moved substantially more than the earnings recovery would justify.
Furthermore, the recovery in earnings, without the direct bottom line impact from tax cuts, may be fleeting as the dollar remains persistently strong.
Of course, we already know much of the rise in “profitability,†since the recessionary lows, has come from a variety of cost-cutting measures and accounting gimmicks rather than actual increases in top line revenue. As shown in the chart below, there has been a stunning surge in corporate profitability despite a lack of revenue growth.
Since 2009, the reported earnings per share of corporations has increased by a total of 221%. This is the sharpest post-recession rise in reported EPS in history. However, that sharp increase in earnings did not come from revenue which is reported at the top line of the income statement. Revenue from sales of goods and services has only increased by a marginal 28% during the same period.
In order for profitability to surge, despite rather weak revenue growth, corporations have resorted to four primary weapons: wage reduction, productivity increases, labor suppression and stock buybacks. The problem is that each of these tools creates a mirage of corporate profitability which masks the real underlying weakness of the overall economic environment. Furthermore, each of the tools used to boost EPS suffer from both being finite in nature and having diminishing rates of return over time."