US stock: Preview of final accounts in the fourth quarter of 2022

 Led by the financial giants on the 13th, major U.S. companies will officially begin reporting their fourth quarter financial results for last year. Among the companies composed of S&P in the United States, 30 and 114 companies will announce settlements next week and the following week respectively. In the short term, the U.S. stock market will experience a recession with the acceleration of interest rate hikes. The content of the company’s settlement and the information sent by the future business environment will be formed.

 According to Bloomberg News, the operating profit margin of S&P companies in the United States was 14.6% in December last year, down from the highest value in February (16.2%). With the increase of wages and other costs, the sales price centred on large enterprises has continued to rise, but the pressure of rising costs on profits is increasing. Under such circumstances, according to the statistics of the financial information company Reiniviv (the time point of the 6th), the sales of the enterprises formed by standard &poor(S&P) in the fourth quarter of last year is expected to increase by 4.1% compared with the previous year, which is a sharp slowdown compared with the previous quarter (an increase of 11.7% year on year). In the case of stagnant profits of the actual disposable place, the stagnant profits of enterprises due to the decline in sales and profit margin will be vigilant. In addition, earnings per share (EPS) decreased by 2.2% year on year, and is expected to decline from the beginning of October (up 5.8% year on year). Although the energy sector (up 64.7% year on year) continues to drive the overall economy, it is expected to decline 6.7% year on year in addition to the energy sector, and continue to decline after the second quarter (down 2.1% year on year) and the third quarter (down 3.3% year on year). Of the 11 major departments including raw materials (22.4% year-on-year decrease), communication services (21.4% year-on-year decrease) and general consumer goods (15.1% year-on-year decrease), it is expected that the profit of 7 departments will decrease compared with that of last year.

 (S&P) overall forecast for the whole year of the United States is that it will increase 5.5% and 4.1% in 2022 and 2023 respectively, down from the beginning of October (7.7% and 7.8% respectively). However, the performance will resume in the second half of this year, and the profit is expected to increase by 10.5% by 2024, which cannot be denied to give a slightly optimistic impression. If the depth and length of the economic slowdown exceed the expectation, the further reduction of the performance forecast will lead to the risk of stock price decline