By Marleen Kaesebier
(Reuters) -European companies are expected to report an average 2.4% rise in first-quarter earnings, LSEG I/B/E/S data showed on Tuesday, better than the 2.3% rise analysts had estimated a week ago.
Of the 278 STOXX 600 companies that have reported, 59% have beaten expectations for the period.
Consensus revenue growth forecasts stayed at 2.3%, unchanged from the last two weeks.
This compares with declines of 3.3% in earnings and 4.6% in revenues a year ago, the data showed.
European market sentiment brightened slightly this week after U.S. President Donald Trump backed away from his threat to impose 50% tariffs on imports from the European Union next month, hitting pause until July 9.
At the time of Trump’s inauguration in January, first-quarter earnings were expected to grow 3.5%, LSEG data showed, but that reversed to an estimated drop of as much as 3.5% after he announced tariffs in April.
Two companies on the Europe-wide index are scheduled to report next week.
Among sectors, European real estate has the highest growth forecast, at 20.6% from the year-ago period, while energy had the weakest at -28.7%.
The Europe-wide STOXX 600 index is up around 8.9% year-to-date, as of Tuesday.
(Reporting by Marleen Kaesebier; Editing by Jan Harvey and Richard Chang)
