20% of S&P companies miss Q2 estimates so far

Through the first few weeks of second-quarter 2019 earnings season, 20% of the companies have reported earnings below consensus estimates. While this is up slightly from the first-quarter reporting period, the proportion of negative earnings surprises is up 7 percentage points from the most recent low in the third quarter of 2018. The overall trend of company's missing estimates has been trending downward since 2012, albeit with more variability.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on one's viewpoint, the proportion of earnings surprises has little bearing on the performance of the index in the following quarter.