Earnings Wrapup

A few weeks back we were periodically reporting on earnings season and the reports that came out about the various companies. Over the weekend, Paul Lim of the New York Times assembled all those figures, and found that it was a very good season indeed. A whopping 77 percent of the S&P 500 companies have reported earnings that beat the Wall Street estimates. Remember, the historical average is that 61 percent of all companies beat the Street's numbers. Overall, profits for the quarter are on track to come in 56 percent higher than the same quarter in 2009.

And 66 percent of the S&P 500 that have made such reports have had revenue growth exceeding the analysts' estimates, indicating that sales have come back strong. The article does point out that if you take out the financial sector, the rest of the S&P 500 is merely meeting expectations in both of these categories.

The ironic thing is that this news come on the heels of a poor week for the stock market. But even if the market is going through a period of temporary weakness, it's good to know that the fundamentals of the economy look strong.