Companies on the influential S&P 500 index are expected to report a 6.8% decline in profits in the first quarter compared to the same period last year, according to estimates by analysts at FactSet. This could be the biggest drop since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and is likely to have a significant impact on stock prices around the world.
The influential stock market index “S&P 500” provides information on the largest and most actively traded companies in the world. It, along with the Nasdaq and Dow Jones, is used as a measure of how global financial markets are doing on average. It also largely determines the mood of the financial world. When the companies covered by these indexes start losing money and their stock prices fall, it usually reverberates around the world.
Therefore, as “The Financial Times” writes, there is a serious risk that the companies’ poor profit figures will stop the slow increase in share values, which had resumed this year after a bad last year.
