OREANDA-NEWS. The Straits Times Index (STI) has recently completed its earnings reports for the March Quarter. The reporting season for the STI constituents began with Singapore Press Holdings on 12 April and ended with SATS reporting this morning.

STI earnings were reported to come in 1.6% above Bloomberg expectations.  These percentage levels are based on the difference between the stock’s actual earnings and the preceding Bloomberg estimates. These percentage metrics are also weighted according to the shares outstanding of the stock.

Using the same framework, the March quarter earnings of two regional indices, the MSCI South East Asia Index and MSCI AC Asia Pacific Index, have come in 2.7% below expectations and 54.6% below expectations respectively. From a Sector perspective, Telecommunications exceeded expectations by the largest percentage amount for both the STI and the MSCI AC Asia Pacific Index. For Singapore, Industrials had the least upside surprise for its March earnings, while the sector with the least upside surprise for the MSCI AC Asia Pacific Index was Consumer Services.

Earnings Per Share

Earnings Per Share (EPS) is a simple measure on the earnings of a company per number of outstanding shares. It can be used to compare the earning power of companies in an index or similar fields of business. In the simplest terms – if a company reported net earnings of over S$1 billion a year while averaging 5 billion shares outstanding, the EPS would be 20 cents.

The 12 month trailing EPS for the STI, as an Index, is currently higher than it stood at the end of 2015 (and 2014) while the 12 month trailing EPS for the MSCI AC Asia Pacific Index and MSCI South East Asia Index are below their respective levels for 2015 and 2014. The individual EPS for the last 12 months for each of the STI constituents is detailed below.

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