Been working its way lower and into contraction ever since the collapse in oil capital expenditures late in 2015, like a slow motion train wreck:
There’s been a history of getting a spike up before the collapse:
Companies are warning that earnings results are going to be brutal
KEY POINTS
With earnings season looming, 77% of companies issuing pre-announcements say their profit picture will be worse than Wall Street is expecting.
That’s the second-worst quarter on record going back to 2006, according to FactSet.
Two tariff-sensitive sectors, tech and health care, have seen the highest amounts of negative announcements.Stocks may have brushed up against record highs Monday. However, a looming threat is just a couple weeks away once profit reports from the second quarter hit.
Analysts have been taking a dimmer view of what is ahead for earnings. They’ve already forecast a decline for the first three quarters of 2019. Now companies are echoing those concerns with a level of pessimism not often seen from corporate America.