With the caveat that nearly all financial information is backward looking, corporate earnings performance of companies in the S&P 500 for the first quarter of 2009 has been "less bad than expected," according to Thomson Reuters.
With 91 percent of companies having reported first quarter earnings, the blended growth rate for the broad market stands at -35.6 percent. As of April 1, 2009, analysts were forecasting a first quarter growth rate of -36 percent.
That noted, the first quarter marked the first time the S&P 500 has recorded seven straight quarters of negative growth since Thomson Reuters began tracking the data in 1998.
And, though companies are beating expectations, the fact remains that all ten sectors that comprise the S&P 500 index are expecting earnings to decline in the second quarter.
Telecom companies in the S&P 500 index had a minus three percent growth rate in the first quarter. While discouraging, telecom companies experienced nothing like the negative 95.5 percent decline for consumer discretionary companies or the negative 59 percent showing for energy firms or the negative 60.8 rate of financial companies.
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