Core Adjusted After-tax Earnings is what these companies report as their Ongoing Earnings in their quarterly earnings releases. It is also the key earnings element that the stock market uses to value common stocks.
These 52 US Technology Corps, in the aggregate, were just crushed in the 1Q 2013, with their Total Core Adjusted After-tax Earnings down 5% from the 1Q 2012. And it was really much worse than that since nearly all of these Technology companies have huge Research and Development Tax Credits, and many of them included their full year 2012 Research and Development Tax Credits in their 1Q 2013 Core Adjusted After-tax Earnings.
The main drivers of this 5% Total Adjusted Earnings decline in the 1Q 2013 were Apple, Seagate Technology and Intel.
The Technology companies generating the highest dollars of Adjusted Earnings increase in the 1Q 2013 as compared with the 1Q 2012 were Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm.
It's pretty clear that this critical US Technology Sector needs a huge dose of US economic fiscal stimulation. This is particularly important since this is where many of the good-paying US jobs are. But with such lousy 1Q 2013 earnings, the prospects for an increase in these well-paying, full-time US jobs of these Technology Corps doesn't look good for at least the rest of 2013, unless there is a sharp upward earnings reversal. And certainly the near-term huge Sequester US Government spending cuts will not help here.....just the opposite, and hugely so.
And since these larger US Technology Corps are doing so poorly on an operating basis in the 1Q 2013, it is certain that the smaller ones are doing likewise, and probably even more so.
Don't get misled by the massive stock market upward move so far in 2013. It's not about strong operating earnings in the 1Q 2013 because they are just not there. It is all about the US Fed providing such low interest rates for an extended period of time, thereby providing such meager yields on alternative fixed income investments, coupled with also providing an increased incentive for massive, incredibly lucrative common stock buybacks of large US Corporations, which buoys EPS and long-term EPS growth, the drivers of common stock values. This was all explained in a post I made on March 20, 2013, which you can access in the below link:
Common Stock Buybacks: Main Cause of US Stock Market Sharp Ascent in 2013
Below here is the Core Adjusted Earnings of each of these 52 US Technology Corps for the 1Q 2013 and the 1Q 2012:
| Core | Core | |||
| 1Q | 1Q | Adjusted | Adjusted | |
| 2013 | 2012 | Net | Net | |
| Core | Core | Income | Income | |
| Adjusted | Adjusted | Increase | Increase | |
| Net | Net | (Decrease) | (Decrease) | |
| Income | Income | Amount | % | |
| mils of $s | mils of $s | mils of $s | ||
| Big Technology Corps | ||||
| Apple | 9,547 | 11,622 | (2,075) | -18% |
| Microsoft | 5,479 | 5,108 | 371 | 7% |
| 3,899 | 3,328 | 571 | 17% | |
| IBM | 3,376 | 3,265 | 111 | 3% |
| Oracle | 3,108 | 3,128 | (20) | -1% |
| Cisco Systems | 2,722 | 2,563 | 159 | 6% |
| Qualcomm | 2,066 | 1,759 | 307 | 17% |
| Intel | 2,045 | 2,738 | (693) | -25% |
| Hewlett Packard | 1,605 | 1,832 | (227) | -12% |
| EMC | 850 | 818 | 32 | 4% |
| Ebay | 829 | 725 | 104 | 14% |
| Accenture | 720 | 714 | 6 | 1% |
| Dell | 702 | 913 | (211) | -23% |
| Western Digital | 514 | 619 | (105) | -17% |
| Thermo Fisher Scientific | 496 | 434 | 62 | 14% |
| Automatic Data Processing | 483 | 450 | 33 | 7% |
| Seagate Technology | 464 | 1,222 | (758) | -62% |
| Yahoo | 420 | 334 | 86 | 26% |
| Broadcom | 400 | 387 | 13 | 3% |
| Texas Instruments | 362 | 265 | 97 | 37% |
| Xerox | 347 | 319 | 28 | 9% |
| VMWare | 319 | 287 | 32 | 11% |
| 287 | 312 | (25) | -8% | |
| NetApp | 243 | 216 | 27 | 13% |
| Agilent Technologies | 222 | 244 | (22) | -9% |
| Nvidia | 215 | 158 | 57 | 36% |
| Sandisk | 207 | 156 | 51 | 33% |
| Motorola Solutions | 187 | 189 | (2) | -1% |
| SAIC | 182 | 106 | 76 | 72% |
| Adobe Systems | 179 | 285 | (106) | -37% |
| KLA Tencor | 171 | 216 | (45) | -21% |
| Check Point Software | 159 | 157 | 2 | 1% |
| Paychex | 145 | 135 | 10 | 7% |
| Maxim Integrated Products | 135 | 100 | 35 | 35% |
| Analog Devices | 131 | 139 | (8) | -6% |
| Xilinx | 131 | 122 | 9 | 7% |
| Linear Technology | 130 | 114 | 16 | 14% |
| Roper Industries | 127 | 108 | 19 | 18% |
| Harris Corp | 125 | 163 | (38) | -23% |
| Juniper Networks | 124 | 84 | 40 | 48% |
| Autodesk | 121 | 106 | 15 | 14% |
| Altera | 120 | 116 | 4 | 3% |
| Amdocs | 119 | 115 | 4 | 3% |
| Citrix Systems | 117 | 111 | 6 | 5% |
| Cerner | 117 | 94 | 23 | 24% |
| Jabil Circuit | 109 | 123 | (14) | -11% |
| Marvell Technology | 104 | 127 | (23) | -18% |
| Intuit | 100 | 158 | (58) | -37% |
| Flextronics | 86 | 166 | (80) | -48% |
| Amazon.com | 82 | 130 | (48) | -37% |
| Teradata | 73 | 103 | (30) | -29% |
| Applied Materials | 69 | 240 | (171) | -71% |
| Total all 52 | 45,070 | 47,423 | (2,353) | -5% |
