Earnings season is drawing to a close, with 488 of the S&P 500 companies having reported their fourth-quarter earnings as of the close of business on Friday. And the results have been pretty strong: All told, earnings are up 5.8 percent over the same quarter a year earlier. After earnings were basically flat in the third quarter, that's a pretty positive figure.
The bad news is, that 5.8 percent figure is still well below the long-run median earnings growth of 9.8 percent per quarter, dating back to 1968. Moreover, given the earnings guidance companies have given for the first quarter of 2013, earnings growth is expected to decline all the way down to 1.4 percent for the current quarter.
Revenues also rebounded in the fourth quarter. They were up by 3.7 percent, after registering a slight decline in the third quarter of 2012. But their growth forecast for the first quarter is just 1 percent.
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