Earnings seasons is upon us once again, and so far, the results have been pretty mediocre. Of the 54 companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 that had reported their earnings through the end of last week, 65 percent came in above their estimates. That may sound pretty good, but it's actually a bit below the historical returns.
That's the bad news; the good news is that earnings growth is up overall. The companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings growth of 1.9 percent so far in the fourth quarter, after a decline in earnings growth of 1 percent in the third quarter of 2012.
The strongest earnings growth so far has been shown by the financial sector, up 12.2 percent, and the utilities sector, up 8.9 percent. The laggards have been the industrials, down 4.8 percent, information technology, down 2.9 percent, and health care, down 1.9 percent.
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