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At Zacks, we compare the reported earnings to the
analysts' consensus estimates. An earnings surprise is the
percentage difference between analysts' expectations and the actual
earnings reported adjusted for continuing operations. Below is our
summary, covering the trading days from June 20, 2000 to July 20, 2000.
Because during the same period last year 2nd quarter reports were already flooding in, based simply on how the dates on the calendar fell, you will notice a large discrepancy in the number of companies reporting between last year's time frame and this year's. We expect totals to be more comparable by next week's update. Between 6/20/99-7/20/99, 2930 companies reported quarterly earnings, as opposed to only 979 between 6/20/00-7/20/00. During this time period last year, 60.9% of companies had better-than-expected quarterly earnings, while 61.6% of companies enjoyed positive quarterly earnings surprises this year. Conversely, 24.0% of 1999 companies had quarterly earnings below expectations during this time frame, while only 21.3% failed to make their consensus estimates this year.
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