Magnificent 7 Earnings Out This Week Will Shed Light On Big Tech's Tariff Concerns

Seeking Alpha
2025.04.23 07:42
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This week, major tech companies, including members of the "Magnificent 7," will report earnings amid concerns over tariffs affecting guidance. The S&P 500's Q1 EPS growth rate stands at 7.2%, with 71% of companies beating expectations. However, many firms, like General Mills and Delta, have downgraded their forecasts due to tariff uncertainties. Alphabet and Tesla are among the companies reporting this week, with analysts expecting mixed results. Additionally, annual shareholder meetings for major firms will take place, indicating a busy earnings season ahead.

Hiroshi Watanabe

With many of the big financial reports out of the way, the S&P 500 blended EPS growth rate for Q1 stands at 7.2%. Thus far, only 12% of S&P 500 constituents have released results.1

While reports for Q1 have been coming in better than expected, with 71% of companies beating bottom-line expectations and 61% beating on the top-line, that is still well below the five and ten-year average beat rates. Forward-looking guidance has also been concerning, with many large caps taking a more cautious view of the economy, mostly due to tariff uncertainty.2

Uncertainty on trade policy looks to have affected what type of guidance companies are willing to give. Many have said their guidance excludes the impact of tariffs, as they don’t know how to quantify those just yet. General Mills (GIS), for example, downgraded guidance for FY 2025 net organic sales, now expected to fall in the range of -1.5% to -2%, from prior guidance for flat to 1% growth. However, they followed this guidance with a note that read: “Due to continued uncertainty regarding the implementation dates and scope of potential U.S. import tariffs or retaliatory tariffs put in place by other countries, this guidance does not include any impact from new tariff actions in 2025.”3 Dollar Tree (DLTR) did something similar when they reported on March 26. After providing a FY 2025 outlook for $18.5B - $19.1B in net sales, and $5.00 - $5.50 for adjusted EPS from continuing operations, they caveated this guidance with: “We have not reflected the impact of this second round of tariffs in our 2025 outlook as the net impact will depend on the eventual policy and the degree, scope, and timing of our mitigation efforts. The imposition of this year's tariffs has introduced uncertainty and volatility.”4

Other large cap names, like Delta (DAL), have said they can’t reaffirm prior 2025 guidance, so in effect offering no outlook at all. After downgrading 2025 guidance back in March, Delta said in their April 9 earnings release "Given current uncertainty, Delta is not reaffirming full year 2025 financial guidance and will provide an update later in the year as visibility improves."5

Big Tech - Including Some Magnificent 7 Names - Begins Reporting this Week

While peak earnings season doesn’t officially begin until next week, we start to get a look at some mega tech reports this week, starting with IBM (IBM) on Wednesday, followed by Alphabet on Thursday.

Mag 7 constituent, Alphabet (GOOGL), was one of the beneficiaries of the tech tariff exemptions announced by the Trump administration last weekend, with the stock rising roughly 1.5% last Monday. Stock prices for those names began to level off after there were conflicting messages about those exemptions, with President Trump posting "There was no tariff 'exception' announced on Friday," to his Truth Social account.6 According to FactSet, Wall Street analysts are anticipating Alphabet's Q1 EPS to rise 6% YoY, and revenues to come in even higher at 12% growth.

Another Mag 7 name reporting this week is Tesla (TSLA), expected to release Q1 results today after the bell. Tesla stock has been pummeled this year, down 40% YTD. This is partially due to boycotts of the electric vehicle maker, as backlash against CEO Elon Musk and his role in the US government through the DOGE program has mounted.7 Earlier this month, the automobile maker reported that Q1 production, deliveries and deployments came in lower than anticipated, with quarterly sales plunging 13%, the worst in three years.8 And just last week, Q1 registrations in California fell 15%, industry data showed.9 According to FactSet, Wall Street analysts are anticipating Tesla’s Q1 EPS to fall 4% YoY, and revenues to come in flat.

Source: Wall Street Horizon

In addition to major earnings reports, we will also hear from companies holding their annual shareholder meetings. Shareholder meeting season begins this week and remains heavy through early June. This week, mega caps from a variety of sectors will hold their annual meetings, including Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Bank of America (BAC) and Adobe (ADBE) today (April 22), Goldman Sachs (GS) on Wednesday (April 23) and Pfizer (PFE) and Boeing (BA) on Thursday (April 24).

Outlier Earnings Dates This Week

Academic research shows that, when a company confirms a quarterly earnings date that is later than when they have historically reported, it’s typically a sign that the company will share negative news on their upcoming call, while moving a release date earlier suggests the opposite.10

This week, we get results from a number of large companies on major indexes that have pushed their Q1 2025 earnings dates outside of their historical norms. Eight companies within the S&P 500 confirmed outlier earnings dates for this week, seven of which are earlier than usual and therefore have positive DateBreaks Factors*. Those names are Northrop Grumman (NOC), Capital One Financial Corp (COF), 3M Corp (MMM), ResMed (RMD), CenterPoint Energy (CNP), CBRE Group (CBRE), and Phillips 66 (PSX). Only Schlumberger (SLB) has a negative DateBreaks Factor for this week.

Q1 Earnings Wave

The peak weeks of the Q1 earnings season are expected to fall between April 28 and May 16, with each week expected to see over 2,000 reports. Currently, May 8 is predicted to be the most active day with 1,162 companies anticipated to report. Thus far, only 60% of companies have confirmed their earnings date (out of our universe of 11,000+ global names), so this is subject to change. The remaining dates are estimated based on historical reporting data.

Source: Wall Street Horizon

Citations

* Wall Street Horizon DateBreaks Factor: statistical measurement of how an earnings date (confirmed or revised) compares to the reporting company's 5-year trend for the same quarter. Negative means the earnings date is confirmed to be later than the historical average, while Positive is earlier.

  1. Earnings Insight, FactSet, John Butters, April 17, 2025
  2. Earnings Insight, FactSet, John Butters, April 17, 2025
  3. General Mills Reports Fiscal 2025 Third-quarter Results and Updates Full-year Outlook, March 19, 2025
  4. Dollar Tree (DLTR) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript, March 26, 2025
  5. Delta Air Lines Announces March Quarter 2025 Financial Results, April 9, 2025
  6. Shifting Signals on Tech Tariffs Fuel Fresh Trade Uncertainty, Wall Street Journal, Amrith Ramkumar and John McCormick, April 13, 2025
  7. Tesla Slides as Analyst Warns of ‘Code Red’ Ahead of Earnings, Bloomberg, Dana Hull, April 20, 2025
  8. Tesla First Quarter 2025 Production, Deliveries & Deployments, April 2, 2025
  9. Tesla registrations slump 15% in EV-loving California, Reuters, Akash Sriram, April 16, 2025
  10. Time Will Tell: Information in the Timing of Scheduled Earnings News, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Eric C. So, Travis L. Johnson, Dec, 2018​

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