From Marketwatch today:
As Wall Street tracks Washington's moves to help the beleaguered banking sector and pass more economic stimulus, nearly 400 of the S&P's 500 companies have weighed in and reported a collective loss -- even excluding financials.A sixth quarter of negative growth ties the prior record set when Harry Truman was president, and ran from the first quarter of 1951 to the second quarter of 1952."And next quarter we're expected a new record of seven quarters of negative growth," Silverblatt said.As of the close of business Thursday, Silverblatt calculates S&P earnings-per-share, on a reported basis, at a loss of $10.44 for the quarter. If financials were taken out of the equation, that EPS deficit would drop to $2.35.
Here is the full story.
As I mentioned several days ago, John Mauldin has a conversation with Silverblatt, in which Silverblatt mentioned that this was the first time -- EVER -- that the S&P 500 had negative earnings. However, the figures I reported then are even worse in this latest update on the S&P 500 earnings.
