The Long Odds CEOs Engineer Another Quarter of U.S. Profit Gains
Alcoa Inc. will release its results Wednesday to unofficially kick off the season. Profit per share for S&P 500 companies is projected to be $28.55, 6.5 percent lower than this time last year.
Photographer: Stephen Morton/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
For five years, U.S. companies have dodged the ignominy of falling profits, often by beating analysts’ estimates by just enough to push earnings higher than they were the previous year.
Repeating the trick will be their biggest challenge to date.