, Columnist
Why Earnings Don’t Scare Stocks This Halloween
Meta’s an exception, but stocks aren’t crashing into a Nightmare on Wall Street because investors had expected earnings to be so much worse.
It could have been much more frightening.
Photographer: Ashley Sandberg/ EyeEm/Getty
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Here’s a conundrum. Corporate earnings season for the third quarter is over halfway through, and it’s not been great. Spectacular disappointments (notably Meta Platforms Inc.) have outnumbered successes. And yet over the last two weeks, as companies have come clean, the S&P 500 has managed to gain 8.8%. What gives?