Quarterly Changes in S&P500 Stocks Suggest Continued Deleveraging, Increased Yield, Stock Byback

May 11, 2011 - PRLog -- SP500Watch tracks 49 key statistics of the SP500 stocks to identify trends and quarterly changes that may be indicative of market or economic change viewed from a macro-perspective.   Results are typically based on generative and discriminative analyses using hypothesis-driven or data-driven modeling. Following is a list of recent analytic findings.

Recent data analysis was performed for 49 key statistics of 228 Standard & Poors stocks (SP500) which reported quarterly results for Q1-2011.  When compared with Q4-2010 statistics, positive changes were observed for average volume (1.4%), profit margin (3%), revenue per share (3%), trailing annual dividend rate (3%), book value per share (3.3%), short % of float (4.5%), diluted eps (4.9%), forward annual dividend yield (5.9%), short ratio (7.7%), quarterly revenue growth (10.6%, yoy), and quarterly earnings growth (46.2%, yoy).   Negative changes were identified for return on equity (-7.9%), return on assets (-7.9%), total debt/equity (-7.9%), current ratio (-6.8%), payout ratio (-4.5%), total cash per share (-4.5%), trailing P/E (-4.1%), operating cash flow (-3.8%), peg ratio (-3.8%), price/sales (-2.5%), operating margin (-2.2%), forward P/E (-0.8%), and total cash (-0.7%).  The decline in debt/equity ratio suggests continued deleveraging, while reductions in total cash are likely due to increased dividend yield and stock byback.   Visit www.sp500watch.com for details.