Only two European stocks have positively surprised markets each quarter over the past five quarters, according to CNBC Pro analysis. Italian bank UniCredit and Portuguese bank Banco Comercial Portugues are the only stocks in the Stoxx Europe 600 index to beat analysts’ earnings per share (EPS) estimates each quarter over the period and saw their shares rise during the next session. CNBC Pro selected stocks that report EPS numbers and have analyst estimates on FactSet. Several companies do not provide EPS data every quarter and have been excluded. UniCredit stood out with several significant increases in its share price after the publication of its quarterly results. Most recently, on February 5, the company beat earnings estimates by 6.1% and shares rose more than 8% in the following session. Four quarters ago, the stock rose 12.8% in a single session after earnings. In February, the Milan-based bank announced it planned to pay out 8.6 billion euros ($9.2 billion at the time) to investors following higher-than-expected profits. The company announced a profit of 1.9 billion euros in the fourth quarter, almost three times analysts’ expectations. The European banking sector has been a net beneficiary of rising interest rates. Many banking stocks, such as Société Générale in France, Banco de Sabadell in Spain, Commerzbank in Germany and Swedbank in Sweden, have beaten earnings per share estimates over the past five quarters. However, shares of these lenders did not rise consistently after the earnings release. This is due to factors such as a negative outlook for future writedowns, slowing loan growth, rising layoff costs, and more. Conversely, shares of German bank Deutsche Bank hit a more than six-year high last week after reporting a 10% rise in first-quarter profit and a better-than-expected result. However, the bank failed to make CNBC Pro’s list as it failed to meet expectations for the quarter ending June 2023 last year.
