01 Nov 2002 Baby Steps

Roughly three quarters of companies have reported their earnings for the third quarter.  First Call tells us that the actual earnings are running 3.1% ahead of the final estimated earnings for S&P500 companies.  But these earnings expectations have been cut several times by analysts in the weeks leading up to reporting season.  At the beginning of the second quarter of this year earnings growth was expected to be over 16%, but by the start of the Q3 reporting season expectations had been cut to just under 5%.