By: Mark Hanna
Posted on: February 12, 2012 at 12:21 pm
As we near the close of earnings season in the next week, the majority of S&P 500 companies have reported. Monday, I mentioned how much of an impact Apple had on S&P 500 earnings.
Including Apple, the earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 is thus far running at 8.4%
Excluding Apple, the earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 is thus far running at 5.3%
Well the story is even more interesting than that… AIG (yes, *that* AIG) is the other half of the earnings dynamo. It has had even more of an impact than Apple. So when you remove those 2 companies, S&P 498 (if you will growth) was a meager 1.1%! That's actually quite shocking to me, but perhaps because I tend to follow high(er) growth stories. Apparently a lot of companies must be declining year over year to offset the high growers.
Analysts expect profit growth to accelerate later this year. But so far, almost all the growth comes from two companies, one of them among America's most favorite, the other among its most hated — Apple and the bailed-out insurance company AIG. Take away those two companies and profits for the remaining 498 are expected to grow a measly 1.1 percent, according to FactSet, a provider of financial data.
As for AIG, the good news is not that it's making much money — it isn't — but that it's not losing money anymore. Later this month,
http://marketmontage.com/2012/02/12/apple-aapl-and-aig-aig-account-for-almost-all-of-the-sp-500-earnings-growth/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marketmontage%2Fxyz+%28Market+Montage%29
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
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