- EXCERPTS and IMAGES: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping America Great
- What Happened to Cypress Semi?
- Lightning Round: Raytheon, Salesforce.com, Pepsi and More
- Lightning Round OT: Apache, Brocade, Allergan and More
- Cramer Goes One-on-One With Costco CEO
- Cramer: The Real Reason Stocks Fell Thursday
- Microsoft's Bill Gates Praises Apple's Steve Jobs For 'Saving the Company'
- Your First Move For Friday November 13th
- Web Extra: Options Action Suggests Next Tech Takeover
- Lions Gate 'Interested' In MGM?
MOST SHARED
- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates Share Their 'Optimism' With Eager Columbia Business Students
- Pharma & Social Media
- Cities With the Most Home Price Reductions
- Warren Buffett's $100,000 Offer and $500,000 Advice for Columbia Business School Students
- Disney Profit, Sales Top Street Forecasts; Shares Jump
- Is Euphoric Market Ignoring Warning Signs?
- Housing Recovery 'Still In Uncharted Territory': HUD Secretary
- Despite Rhetoric, Obama Has Limited Options To Boost Jobs
- Disney CFO and Parks Chief to Swap Roles
RSS FEED
Text Size 
Here we go again.
Analysts now expect earnings to decline in the first quarter of 2008.
Today, Thomson Financial's earnings growth consensus for the S&P 500 fell to -0.1 percent.
On Jan. 1, analysts expected growth of 5.7 percent On Oct. 1, it was 10.6 percent.
The main drag on earnings continues to be the financial sector.
Forecasts are for a 23 percent decline in financials' profits. On Jan. 1 consensus was an 11 percent decline and on Oct. 1 analysts called for a 5 percent increase.
Excluding financials, the growth forecast jumps to +9.0 percent.
However, other sectors are softening as well. Consumer discretionaries are also expected to decline 4 percent, a big drop from +8 percent consensus on Jan. 1 and a +18 percent forecast on Oct. 1.
Profits in the materials sector is also expected to fall by 3% versus a forecast of 7 percent increase on Jan.1 and 9 percent increase on Oct. 1.
Here's the sector-by-sector breakdown:
Q1 Earnings Growth by Sector |
| Current | 1-Jan | 1-Oct | |
| SECTOR | Mar08Q | Mar08Q | Mar08Q |
| Consumer Discretionary | -4% | 8% | 18% |
| Consumer Staples | 9% | 10% | 11% |
| Energy | 24% | 26% | 18% |
| Financials | -23% | -11% | 5% |
| Healthcare | 5% | 6% | 7% |
| Industrials | 6% | 8% | 9% |
| Materials | -3% | 7% | 9% |
| InformationTech | 10% | 14% | 14% |
| Telecomm Serv | 11% | 14% | 16% |
| Utilities | 7% | 8% | 10% |
| Total for S&P500 | -0.1% | 5.7% | 10.6% |
Source: Thomson Financial
The market has hit the Financial Sector the most in the past three months. Leading the Financials to the downside in the past 3 months are:
- MBIA [MBI
Loading...
()
] down 67% - Ambac Financial [ABK
Loading...
()
] down 64%
- Sallie Mae [SLM
Loading...
()
] down 45%
- MGIC Investment Corp [MTG
Loading...
()
] down 44%
- Countrywide Financial [CFC
Loading...
()
] down 35%
- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates spoke to Columbia students, and Buffett made the students a startling offer.
- They may have wrecked their companies or saved our economy. Tell us what you think.
- Big pharma embraces social media, but how much should a tightly regulated sector say on Facebook or Twitter?
- A European dating site finds lovelorn singles from one country to be consistently uglier. Which is it?
- Contributor David Pogue looks at two of the latest efforts to perfect the digital pocket camera.
- PepsiCo is ramping up its onsite health facilities for workers.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes