What to expect for second-quarter earnings season; H2 2020 outlook

Betty Liu, Executive Vice Chairman for NYSE Group, provides her perspective:

What are analysts expecting, going to the second quarter earnings season?

So, this earnings season has just started this past week, you saw banks kick off their reports. And as you can well imagine, analyst estimates are pretty much all over the place. And part of that is because a good number of companies did not provide guidance. Now, according to some estimates, some analysts estimates, we could see an earnings season decline or earnings decline as much as 44% this time around. That would be one of the biggest declines since 2008, the prior crisis.

What is the outlook for the second half of 2020?

Well, that's the million-dollar question. What is going to happen the rest of the year? So, nobody knows, right? But there's a few factors that we're going to be watching to see how companies perform. One is going to be watching the number of coronavirus cases across the country. And the second, of course, is watching the results of the November presidential elections.