A new quarterly corporate earnings season is approaching in the U.S. and sentiment remains high. Consensus estimates point to earnings growth for S&P 500 companies in the first quarter of 2021 of 20% (see attached table), which would make this period the one with the highest earnings growth since the third quarter of 2018, when they grew by 26.1%. For the second quarter, also given the low comparison base, an even greater increase in earnings for these companies is expected (+50%).

Revenues are expected to remain solid with an expected growth of 5% for 1Q21 and 18% for 2Q21.

For the full year, earnings growth of 23% and 10% in sales are expected, although we believe there is upside risk to the market consensus, as taking the IMF's latest update of global GDP growth projections for 2021 of 6% as input, this would be consistent with earnings growth of 34% for the S&P 500.