, Columnist
The Terrific (But Not Quite as Good as It Looks) First Quarter
Look beneath the tax-cut benefit for the true state of corporate America.
This article is for subscribers only.
Wall Street's best quarter in years will come with a large asterisk. How big may determine where stocks are headed next.
In a little more than a week, publicly traded companies will begin reporting their results from the first three months of the year. It's expected that they will be incredibly good. Even great. Earnings growth for the companies in the S&P 500 Index is estimated to have risen 17 percent in the first quarter, the largest jump in profits since the first quarter of 2011. That performance, however, may not be as good as it seems.