{"id":18332,"date":"2025-07-08T15:58:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T21:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=18332"},"modified":"2025-07-08T15:58:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T21:58:05","slug":"technology-sector-looking-at-the-last-5-quarters-upside-surprise-factor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/?p=18332","title":{"rendered":"Technology Sector: Looking at the Last 5 Quarters &#8220;Upside Surprise&#8221; Factor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While the big tech companies for the most part don&#8217;t report until the 3rd or 4th week in July, looking over prior quarters EPS and revenue growth rates for tech, here&#8217;s what the progression looked like in terms of where the quarter started, and how the actual growth rates compared to what was expected:<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Q1 &#8217;24:<\/strong><\/em> Tech sector EPS was expected to grow +20.9% at the start of the Q1 &#8217;24 reporting season, while tech revenue was expected to grow +7.1%. Actual tech sector EPS growth was +27% for a 610 bp upside EPS surprise, while tech sector revenue actually grew +8.5% for a 140 bp upside surprise.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Q2 &#8217;24:<\/strong><\/em> Tech sector EPS was expected to grow +16.9% at the start of the quarter, but actual growth was +21.5% for a 440 bp upside surprise. Revenue growth for tech was expected to grow +6.7% in Q2 &#8217;24, but actually grew +11% for a 430 bp upside surprise.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Q3 &#8217;24:<\/strong><\/em> In q3 &#8217;24 tech sector EPS generated another 440 bp upside surprise (15.1% estimated vs 19.5% actual EPS growth) while tech revenue expectations started out high at +12%, thereby limiting the upside surprise to 110 bp&#8217;s or 13.1%.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Q4 &#8217;24: <\/strong><\/em>Tech sector EPS expected at +15.% growth, actual was 19.8% for a 450 bp upside surprise. Tech revenue expected at 11.1%, actual was 12.1%, for a 100 bp upside surprise.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Q1 &#8217;25: <\/strong><\/em>Tech sector EPS growth expected at +16.1%, while actual was +18.1% for an upside surprise of 200 bp&#8217;s, while tech revenue initially expected at +11.3%, actual was +13.3% also for a 200 bp upside surprise.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Q2 &#8217;25:<\/strong><\/em> EPS growth of +17.7% and revenue growth of +12.6% expected for Q2 &#8217;25.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what we know <em><strong>upside surprise progression in tech sector EPS growth<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>Q1 &#8217;24:<\/strong><\/em> +610 bp&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Q2 &#8217;24:<\/strong><\/em> +440 bp&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Q3 &#8217;24:<\/strong> <\/em>+440 bp&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Q4 &#8217;24:<\/strong><\/em> +450 bp&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Q1 &#8217;25:<\/strong><\/em> +200 bp&#8217;s<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>The upside progression in tech sector revenue growth:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>Q1 &#8217;24:<\/strong><\/em> +140bp&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Q2 &#8217;24:<\/strong><\/em> +430 bp&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Q3 &#8217;24:<\/strong> <\/em>+110 bp&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Q4 &#8217;24:<\/strong><\/em> +100 bp&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Q1 &#8217;25:<\/strong><\/em> +200 bp&#8217;s<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>Summary:<\/strong><\/em> The expected EPS growth for the tech sector for Q2 &#8217;24 looks like it&#8217;s inline with the previous 5 quarters in terms of being in the &#8220;high teens&#8221;. However the &#8220;upside surprise&#8221; factor seems to be diminishing a little bit the last 5 quarters.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe a little more revealing is that tech&#8217;s EPS upside surprise each quarter was below the SP 500 EPS upside surprise each quarter, sometimes by 50% or more, although tech&#8217;s overall growth rates are much higher than the other 10 sectors of the SP 500, with the exceptions of the communications services sector and the consumer discretionary sector.<\/p>\n<p>Tech sector revenue growth was 7% &#8211; 8% in Q1 &#8217;24, but that has increased to mid-to-high teens for the last 3 quarters.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been an usual 5 &#8211; 6 years so far this decade, given Covid for two years and then the interest rate hikes of 2022 and now late &#8217;24 and &#8217;25 are dealing with the new world of tariffs.<\/p>\n<p>The breakout in the Nasdaq Composite and the Nasdaq 100 is definitely a positive, along with the SP 500. Technically you have to think the breakouts are a continued positive for the overall market.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s watch tech upside surprises as the Q2 &#8217;25 earnings releases unfold.<\/p>\n<p>None of this is advice or a recommendation but only an opinion. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. None of this information may be updated, and if updated, may not be done so in a timely fashion.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While the big tech companies for the most part don&#8217;t report until the 3rd or 4th week in July, looking&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sp-500s-upside-surprise","category-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18332"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18335,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18332\/revisions\/18335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundamentalis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}