Earnings Season Hopes Plunge 50% in 90 Days

oldpigwang

By Matt Nesto | Breakout – 52 minutes ago

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/b ... days-123107451.html

By some measures, third quarter earnings season could reflect an unprecedented level of pessimism. According to John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet, nearly one-fifth of companies in the S&P 500 (^GSPC) have pre-warned Wall Street that they won't meet expectations.

As a result, Butters says in the attached video, the profit growth forecast for the benchmark index has undergone a serious beat down since the start of the quarter, having been cut from 6.5% on July 1st to just 3.0% today.

At the same time, this Boston-based number cruncher has unearthed another troubling factoid that points to the unusually feeble mindset of corporate America. A record low 19 companies, or about 4% of the S&P 500, had the nerve to say in advance that they see things coming in better than analysts thought they would.