Earnings Season Stinks… Just Not As Much As We Thought

We came into earnings season with remarkably low expectations.

But it turns out things don't stink that much.

FactSet just updated their earnings season stats, and as of Friday, things stink — just not as much as they were expected to.

At the end of Q2, traders expected a revenue decline of -0.8%.

And as of last week, actual results have dragged that number up to +0.1%.

57% of companies have beaten revenue forecasts, which is slightly above the 55% 5-year average.

Consumer discretionary (namely AMZN), Tech (think AAPL), Health Care, and Financials have been leading the way

The earnings side is looking decent too.

Q2 is showing a -3.7% earnings decline. Now that's pretty bad on its head, but at the end of Q2, analysts expected a -5.5% decline.

The conclusion: once again, earnings season stinks… just not as much as we thought.

And remember, these numbers don't reflect today's solid earnings reports from Pfizer (PFE), CVS (CVS), and others.

This is another reason the market's falling apart.

Everyone's been bracing for disaster and we're clearly not getting it.

And of course, it helps that economic data has been generally decent.

Disclosure: Position in AAPL