Monthly Archives: October 2007

We’re up to our ears in earnings reports, with a lot more coming next week. Throughout this earnings season, so far, the common themes seem to be: The S&P 500 companies will double expectations for 3.8% growth, but that’s still a slowish growth rate of 7% to 8%. Technology is growing faster, meeting or beating expectations, and guiding at or above the consensus for the December quarter. Even so, tech stocks are subject to downturns if there is anything to point at (i.e.: Amazon margins, Harmonic stock filing, Intel — well, nothing, but they clipped it anyway). All this is...

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Earnings! Alcoa’s report after the close on Tuesday marked the unofficial kickoff of third-quarter earnings season. In spite of Alcoa’s mild earnings disappointment after beating the revenue consensus, I still expect overall third-quarter earnings to be stronger than Wall Street’s forecast, with 6% to 8% year-over-year growth instead of the 3.3% consensus. That will be good for the broad market, but what will really make the difference is better guidance for the December fourth quarter than the Street now expects. You see for the fourth quarter, the Street has been very bearish. With all the problems emanating from the sub-prime...

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