, Columnist
Wall Street Is the New Fantasy Island
Stocks are banking on gangbuster earnings for two years.
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There is even more magical thinking about future profits than usual.
Companies begin reporting their third-quarter earnings in earnest this week, and the results are not expected to be all that fantastic. Profits are predicted to have grown just 3.6 percent for the companies in the S&P 500 compared with the same quarter a year ago, according to Bloomberg estimates. That would be the slowest growth in a year and a significant drop from the 10 percent earnings increase in the second three months of the year.