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

As of this morning, 143 of the S&P 500 companies (just under 30%) have reported earnings.

Here's how things stand:

• Companies Exceeding Estimates: 88 or 62%
• Companies Matching Estimates: 21 or 15%
• Companies Falling Below Estimates: 34 or 24%

So far, the financial sector has had some of the biggest surprises to the upside, with Keycorp reporting EPS that was 54% above expectations. In absolute dollars, Morgan Stanley still leads with its $444 million surprise followed by Goldman Sachs with a $295 million surprise.

Earnings Leaderboard - Best Performers (as of 4/21)

Company	Symbol	Sector	Date	EPS Est.	Actual	%Chg
Southwest Airlines	LUV	Airlines	4/17/2008	0.01	0.06	500%
Keycorp	KEY	Financials	4/17/2008	0.35	0.54	54%
ConAgra Foods	CAG	Cons Staples	3/27/2008	0.41	0.63	54%
CIT Group Inc.	CIT	Financials	4/17/2008	0.58	0.82	41%
Morgan Stanley	MS	Financials	3/19/2008	1.03	1.45	41%

Thomson Reuters

On the downside, the banks also lead the losers with Wachovia reporting the biggest miss in that sector, off by 135%. In absolute dollars, Wachovia is still the biggest loser with its $1.0 billion downside surprise. General Electric follows with its downside surprise of $700 million.

Earnings Leaderboard - Biggest Losers (as of 4/21)

Company	Symbol	Sector	Rpt Date	EPS Est.	Actual	%Chg
Wachovia Corp	WB	Financials	4/14/2008	0.40	-0.14	-135%
New York Times	NYT	Cons Discretionary	4/17/2008	0.14	0.04	-71%
First Horizon	FHN	Financials	4/17/2008	0.13	0.06	-54%
Bank of America	BAC	Financials	4/21/2008	0.41	0.23	-44%
Intl Game Tech	IGT	Cons Discretionary	4/17/2008	0.34	0.22	-35%

Thomson Reuters

Source:Thomson Reuters