Earnings at the halfway mark are much better than expected

Earnings at the halfway mark are much better than expected

Amazon plans to have 10,000 of the new electric vehicles from Rivian on the road as early as 2022 and all 100,000 vehicles on the road by 2030.

Amazon/Jordan Stead

Amazon, Facebook, and Apple are only among the most recent examples of a notable trend: earnings much better than expected.

The reopening story may be getting rocky, but one pleasant surprise has been earnings.

They are far noisier than normal, but in general they have been better than expected. Much better. And that is one of the main factors holding up the markets.

With half of the S&P reporting, about 80% of companies have beaten the estimates, well above the historic norm of about 70%.

More importantly, they are beating by much wider margins than usual.

The average earnings beat has been 13.2% above the consensus, way above the historic norm of 3.3%, according to Refinitiv.

That is the highest beat rate since 2010, when many companies surprised Wall Street coming out of the Great Recession.

Is something similar happening now? It's too early to say, but David Aurelio, who tracks corporate earnings at Refinitiv, thinks the amount by which companies are beating estimates is significant.

"It looks like everyone was too pessimistic," Aurelio  said. "Companies were not giving guidance.