with nearly 74 of the companies in the sp 500 that have reported earnings results for the second quarter beating wall street estimates analysts said resilient corporate fundamentals and peaking core inflation pressures may keep the federal reserve on track for more rate increases but at a slower pace “with nearly threequarters of its market cap now reported sp 500 spx earnings have increased 9 yearonyear 52 of reporters beat consensus expectations by 1 standard deviation and revenues are growing in every sector” said analysts led by goldman sachs chief economist jan hatzius in a note monday “even excluding the outperforming energy sector sp revenues rose 38 in real terms above the 26 average pace since 1970 and compared to an average decline of 12 in the first quarter of recessions” the stocks had powered higher last week with the sp 500 and dow jones industrial average djia closing the final trading day of july with the biggest monthly gains since november 2020 after raising the benchmark interest rate by another 75 basis points last week fed chair jerome powell suggested that another unusually large interestrate hike might be needed in september but would depend on upcoming economic data while he added that it will also likely be appropriate to slow increases at some point the preliminary reading of secondquarter gdp on thursday confirmed an economic contraction and convinced markets that the us economy is probably technically in recession on friday the june personal consumption expenditures the fed’s preferred inflation measure hit the highest level since january 1982 however corporate financial results indicate otherwise apple inc aapl on thursday posted betterthanexpected results for its latest quarter highlighted by a 3 revenue jump in the iphone segment which helped offset a sizable miss in mac revenue amid steep supply constraints amazoncom inc amzn reported a revenue growth of 7 in the second quarter which also topped estimates reflecting the power of prime aws and the company’s advertising business read more apple follows up robust earnings swift iphone sales with 55 billion debt deal according to factset analysts lowered thirdquarter eps estimates for sp 500 companies by a largerthan average margin in july the q3 bottomup eps estimate an aggregation of the median eps estimates for all the companies in the largecap index decreased by 25 from june 30 to july 28 read more faangs ain’t what they used to be so beware the bearmarket bounce says this hedge fund manager analysts usually reduce earnings estimates during the first month of a quarter for example during the past five years the average decline in the bottomup eps estimate during the first month of a quarter has been 13 during the past 10 years that number has been 18 during the past 15 years the average decline has been 21 see chart “thus the decline in the bottomup eps estimate recorded during the first month of the third quarter was larger than the 5year average 10year average 15year average and 20year average” wrote john butters vice president and senior earnings analyst at factset in a note on monday “the third quarter also marked the largest decrease in the bottomup eps estimate during the first month of a quarter since q2 2020” us stock indexes ended slightly lower on monday with the sp 500 spx slipping 03 while the nasdaq composite comp dipped 02 and the dow jones industrial average djia declined 01