Across some sectors,  some recent profit warnings have followed the unpopular May budget, which hit consumer sentiment. A warm start to winter also hurt clothes retailers, while the dollar, although lower than a year ago, appreciated quicker than many anticipated after dropping to US86.8 cents in January, impacting exporters.

These drags on revenue and profit growth will be the focus of investors and analysts when hundreds of listed companies - including many of Australia's biggest and most well-known corporates - unveil full financial year, half-year or quarterly results over the next month.

Research this week by Deutsche Bank suggests many of the earnings surprises might not be pleasant. It found that in 16 of the past 25 years, earnings growth has ended up lower than forecast at the start of the year.

“Even excluding recessions, misses were more common than beats,” it says.

However, mining groups at least have been able lift some expectations: buoyant quarterly production reports from mining giants BHP Billiton, Fortescue and Rio Tinto point to solid financial year results, although softening commodity prices, some oversupply concerns and wobbles in China may force caution on the outlook for the year ahead.

Newcrest, which is mainly a gold miner, has been a strong sharemarket performer this year, underpinned by a recovering gold price after a shakeout of smaller players.

Macquarie Wealth Management notes that earnings per share growth forecasts in the resources sector have “pulled back in recent months, reflecting a more modest depreciation of the Australian dollar and lower commodity prices than what were previously expected”.

Notwithstanding these factors, it expects the sector to deliver a strong rebound in per-share year-on-year earnings growth, to about 33 per cent in contrast to last year’s 26 per cent decline. This marked improvement is put down to capacity and volume surges throughout the fiscal year, continuing cost cuts and a stable Australian dollar.

“These factors have more than offset further weakness in commodity prices, which remain a headwind, although less so than in the prior year,” Macquarie says.

Mining services companies, by contrast, have had another tough year, battered by falling business volumes from the big miners and tighter margins on intensifying competition.

Leighton Holdings has already reported, revealing a 20 per cent drop in first-half net profits this week, although it maintained its full-year earnings guidance.

Transfield’s share price has been recovering this year on hopes of it meeting upbeat profit forecasts, but some analysts remain sceptical.

Boart Longyear, meanwhile, warned it risked breaching its financial covenants if market conditions continue to deteriorate more than expected.

Consumer caution on job market softness and the unpopular May budget – together with the slow start to winter in the case of clothes retailers – has lowered expectations from the likes of JB Hi-Fi and Myer and Super Retail Group, and there have been recent earnings downgrades from The Reject Shop, Kathmandu and Pacific Brands.

The warm, dry weather, however, did help lift some construction and property companies, which were also aided by low interest rates and pent-up demand for housing in the capital cities.

“One bright spot in the economy was the recovery in house prices and construction, which finally began to ramp up in the second half [of financial 2014],” Dalton Nicol Reid chief investment officer Jamie Nicol said.

After an upbeat interim earnings report, integrated property group Mirvac will be closely watched, particularly for its outlook for the rest of the year.

Chief executive Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz is bullish on the company’s prospects, and data out this week on dwelling and non-residential approvals shows momentum in activity after a shaky start to fiscal 2014.

The ABS said this week that despite a month-on-month drop in June, year-on-year growth in dwelling approvals was 16 per cent. Approvals for non-residential buildings surged 18 per cent for the month and 7.5 per cent on the year.

Banks, too, have had a reasonably good year to date, albeit constrained by below-trend loan book growth despite record low interest rates.

“There has been steady growth in new lending, but a lot of people are using low interest rates to pay down existing debts,” Bell Potter banks analyst T.S. Lim said.

Perpetual Investments chief investment officer Matt Sherwood adds: “When you look at Australian banks, you can see that the credit that they’re issuing is not as great as it once was, but it’s still positive, well above inflation.”

Also on the positive side, according to analysts, banks’ credit quality has hit its highest point for years, with Commonwealth Bank of Australia a top performer.

And despite some erosion of the net interest margin in the fight for new mortgage business and term savers, cheaper wholesale funding and the low interest rate environment have allowed banks recently to offer attractive fixed-rate deals to homebuyers.

Despite these obvious bright spots, analysts and portfolio managers concur that performance on a sector-by-sector basis has become increasingly difficult to measure uniformly.

“Market and sector level growth rates have become increasingly misleading given the widening dispersion of earnings growth across the market in the last six months,” says Macquarie Wealth Management’s executive director of macro research Tanya Branwhite.

“While operating conditions for many domestically focused companies remain challenging, particularly in the mining services space and for those companies with weak business models, there is a long list of stocks that remain well placed to deliver above-average earnings growth this reporting season.

“Top line growth will be a key focus of investors this reporting season and will be a key differentiator of the level of earnings growth delivered.”

Across all sectors, consensus is for average earnings growth for 2013-14 of about 8 per cent. Matching that in the financial year now under way may be a struggle for many companies, according to Perpetual’s Matt Sherwood.

“Companies have held earnings growth at around 8 per cent – that’s what it’s likely to be in financial year 2014,” he says.

“In financial year 2015 it’s going to be a bit harder to get that 8 per cent. The reason for that is that last financial year, [companies] had a bit more support from monetary policy; they had a lower exchange rate. Now the exchange rate has risen."

Chief investment officer at Equity Trustees George Boubouras says efficiencies extracted from companies over the past two years will be rewarded once growth in Australia and around the world picks up.

“When the macroeconomic backdrop improves this will assist in margin expansion,” he says.