More than half of the companies that comprise the Standard & Poor's 500 Index have reported earnings for the quarter, and two-thirds of them have exceeded expected earnings per share by an average of 7%, according to Thomson Financial, compared with 4.2% over the past eight quarters. Two explanations spring to mind: Either companies aren't very good at forecasting, which means they shouldn't give profit targets at all, or they are purposely low-balling to spur post-earnings enthusiasm in the stock market.
Interestingly -- or troubling, depending on your perspective -- is that revenue growth of 6.2% has been outpaced by per-share earnings growth of 9.9%. One implication of this is that companies are squeezing more profit out of every sale.
Many of them very well may have, helped in large part by the weak dollar's influence on international revenue. But maneuvers like stock buybacks, which can boost per-share earnings by reducing the number of shares outstanding, also appear to have played a role, as companies manipulate the legal levers to game the system so that their earnings will look more robust.
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