US earnings surprise 7% with energy and technology as winners

20 percent of the companies in the S&P 500 Index have now reported earnings, which we can use as a proxy of the final outcome. Companies have beaten EPS estimates by around 7 percent on average with financials showing the largest positive surprise factor by 18 percent.

We have repeatedly highlighted energy and information technology as the best opportunities and the current earnings season does indeed show that those two sectors have seen thoe largest growth in both earnings and sales per share.

Next week's earnings releases continue in the fast lane with 298 scheduled releases representing around 36 percent of the total expected earnings releases this quarter in the S&P 500 and STOXX 600 Index. Read our full earnings week publication with estimates, expected growth in EPS and 3 mo. changes in estimates, here.

The most important earnings releases next week are:

Monday
Caterpillar and Texas Instrument

Tuesday
Novartis, UBS, Deutsche Bank, BP and BG Group

Wednesday
SAP, BBVA, GlaxoSmithKline, ConocoPhillips, Visa, Boeing and Ford Motor

Thursday
ABB, Volkswagen, BASF, Daimler, Bayer, Novo Nordisk, Banco Santander, AstraZeneca, ENI, Royal Dutch Shell, Statoil, Exxon Mobil, Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive

Friday
Chevron, Merck and Newmont Mining