John Authers, Columnist

The Big Question Hanging Over U.S. Earnings

Whether surprises will be positive or negative isn’t the main issue. What really matters is whether profits make sense at all.

October 8, 2019 at 4:01 AM UTC

By John Authers

John Authers is a senior editor for markets and Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former chief markets commentator at the Financial Times, he is author of “The Fearful Rise of Markets.”

American Dollar Symbol And A Silver Question Mark On Black Wood Surface — Photographer: MicroStockHub/Getty Images

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The third-quarter reporting season is about to break out, and Wall Street brokers have made sure their clients are braced for an outright decline in earnings per share compared to a year ago. If that happens, this would be the third quarter in a row – although things were very close in both the first two quarters of this year. These are expectations as recorded by FactSet: