S&P 500 Earnings Leaderboard: Biggest Surprises Season to Date

So far 291 (just under 60%) of the S&P 500 companies have reported earnings.

Here's how things stand:

Companies Exceeding Estimates: 174 or 60%

Companies Matching Estimates: 40 or 14%

Companies Falling Below Estimates: 77 or 26%

So far it is the Energy and Tech Sectors that have the biggest surprises to the upside, with Exxon Mobil delivering $982 million more than analysts expected. Valero Energy surprised with EPS that was 59% above expectations.

Earnings Leaderboard - Best Performers (as of 2/1)

Company	Symbol	Sector	Rpt Date	Est. EPS	Actual EPS	%Chg	$M Diff
Exxon Mobil	XOM	Energy	2/1	1.95	2.13	9%	982
Microsoft	MSFT	Tech	1/24	0.46	0.5	9%	380
Pfizer	PFE	Health	1/23	0.47	0.52	11%	340
Valero Energy	VLO	Energy	1/29	0.64	1.02	59%	211
Oracle	ORCL	Tech	12/19	0.27	0.31	15%	209
Goldman Sachs	GS	Fin Svcs	12/18	6.61	7.01	6%	181
IBM	IBM	Tech	1/17	2.68	2.8	4%	170
ConocoPhillips	COP	Energy	1/23	2.38	2.48	4%	161
Merck	MRK	Health	1/30	0.74	0.8	8%	131
Apple	AAPL	Tech	1/22	1.62	1.76	9%	126

Thomson Financial

On the downside the banks and homebuilders lead the losers with Merril Lynch missing by $6.3 billion more than analysts expected.

Earnings Leaderboard - Worst Performers (as of 2/1)

Company	Symbol	Sector	Rpt Date	Est. EPS	Actual EPS	$M Diff
Merrill Lynch	MER	Fin Svcs	1/17	-4.93	-12.57	-6303
Citigroup	C	Fin Svcs	1/15	-1.03	-1.99	-4735
Morgan Stanley	MS	Fin Svcs	12/19	-0.39	-3.61	-3219
Lennar	LEN	Consumer Disc	1/24	-1.65	-7.92	-991
Centex	CTX	Consumer Disc	1/29	-0.78	-7.94	-879
Pulte Homes	PHM	Consumer Disc	1/30	-0.5	-3.54	-768
Washington Mutual	WM	Fin Svcs	1/17	-1.36	-2.19	-710
KB Home	KBH	Consumer Disc	1/8	-1.08	-9.99	-689
Bear Stearns	BSC	Fin Svcs	12/20	-1.79	-6.9	-650
Bank of America	BAC	Fin Svcs	1/22	0.18	0.05	-581

Thomson Financial

Source:Thomson Financial