Zacks Analyst Interview Highlights: Cabot Oil and Gas and ExxonMobil

Some of the factors which should help median EPS growth are share repurchases, which though have slowed in recent months, will still reflect what happened last year. Oddly, increased share counts will also help boost EPS among the Financials. Since the ones that have increased their share counts the most (by going hat-in-hand to the sovereign wealth funds looking for new capital) are also the ones that are likely to reports losses, so the loss per share will be less.

In addition, to the extent that firms have large operations overseas, they should benefit from the currency translation effects of the weak dollar. The weak dollar has also boosted those companies that export a substantial portion of their sales.

Keep in mind that median growth rates are inherently equally weighted, so the growth rate for Cabot Oil and Gas (NYSE: COG) is just as significant to the results for the Energy sector as the growth rate for Exxon (NYSE: XOM).

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